NSF Award
2027849
The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a smart sensing system capable of real-time, continuous condition monitoring of a machine’s health status. The goal is to reduce operation costs by optimizing the maintenance schedule and eliminating the need for costly shutdowns for inspection, while also avoiding catastrophic component failure during operation. Its comprehensive monitoring of both debris and multiple oil properties with real-time analysis is expected to transform condition monitoring of rotating and reciprocating machines used in the wind farm, transportation, manufacturing and defense industries. Along with high sensitivity and compact size, it will be a powerful instrument for online health monitoring and life prognosis for bearings, turbomachinery gearboxes, and even combustion engines. <br/><br/>This I-Corps project is based on the development of a smart sensing system for online machine health monitoring. The technology uses a unique inductive pulse sensing technology combined with a multiplexed microfluidic device enabling the detection of individual wear debris (20+ microns), enabling continuous monitoring of the entire wear progression from inception. In addition, real-time big data processing is used to significantly reduce the data size to be analyzed and stored, enabling real-time online monitoring. The system also uses a property-sensing array enabling accurate lubricant measurement of multiple characteristics. The artificial neural network is used to pinpoint individual oil properties from the overlapped sensor responses with high accuracy and speed, eliminating cross-sensitivities and providing complete machine health information.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
