Patent Document ID: 7873581
Application ID: 11872366
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of determining reliability of at least one DC motor system on a site, the method comprising: providing at least one DC condition forecaster, wherein the at least one DC condition forecaster is located on the site having the at least one DC motor system; acquiring historical motor data corresponding to the at least one DC motor system from at least one historical database; wherein the historical motor data comprises data representing an armature current; a field current; a field temperature; a bearing temperature; vibration; speed; commutator arcing; and combinations thereof; receiving operational indicator data from at least one sensor of the DC motor system; performing at least one reliability analysis based on a composite of reliability probability distributions corresponding to predetermined sub-populations of historical failure causes relating to the at least one DC motor system; developing at least one causal network for modeling reliability of a plurality of DC motor systems, including the at least one DC motor system, and assessing a combination of at least one DC motor system component based on the causal network; performing at least one integrated causal network and reliability analysis of the at least one DC motor system, wherein results from the at least one analysis are integrated with results from the step of assessing the at least one DC motor system component condition based on the at least one causal network to compute a quantitative value for an estimated time remaining before the failure; and generating at least one operability curve of the DC motor system based in part on the results of the step of performing the at least one integrated causal network and reliability analysis of the at least one DC motor system.