Condition Based Maintenance at USC

The CBM Research Center has supported the U.S. Army by conducting research to support a timely and cost-effective aircraft maintenance program. Research emphasis has been on the collection of historical data, as well as aircraft component testing.

A critical pre-requisite of CBM is to have a well established baseline of historical data by which to measure and compare performance, usage, wear, and failure of helicopter performance. The available data on logistics, usage, maintenance, supply, missions, and training procedures provide a valuable building block in creating a baseline for CBM.

The CBM test facilities include full-scale drive train test stands capable of testing several platforms such as the U.S. Army Apache, Blackhawk, and Chinook helicopters. The facility tests the performance of components, subsystems, and systems of the three platforms through measurements of vibration, speed, load, acoustic emission, and temperature.

The data are stored in a central server and analyzed to develop diagnosis and prognosis algorithms for better predictive and proactive maintenance of aircraft. Also the CBM Center generates value engineering and cost benefit analysis (CBA) models of the U.S. Army CBM program, and has developed intuitive CBA algorithms that have proven the cost-effectiveness of the program.

These research activities are funded by the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Army Research Office, US Army Research Laboratory, and Home Land Security Department.