A Cloud-based Probabilistic Remaining Useful Life Estimation in Adhesively Bonded joint

The remaining useful life (RUL) estimation is an important metric that helps in condition-based maintenance. Damage data obtained from the diagnostics techniques are often noisy and the RUL estimated by calibrating the parameters of the physics-based predictive model with the damage data is less reliable. Estimating the probabilistic RUL by quantifying the uncertainty in the predictive model parameters using the noisy data increases confidence in the predicted values. Uncertainty quantification methods generate statistical samples for the model parameters, that represent the uncertainty, by evaluating the predictive model several times. The computational time for solving a physics-based predictive model is significant, making the statistical techniques that enable probabilistic RUL estimation computationally expensive. It is essential to reduce the computational time for RUL so that RUL can be estimated in a feasible time. This work demonstrates real-time probabilistic RUL estimation in adhesively bonded joints using the Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) sampling method and cloud-based computations. The SMC sampling method is an alternative to traditional MCMC methods, which enables generating of statical parameter samples in parallel. The parallel computational capabilities of the SMC methods are exploited by running the SMC simulation on multiple cloud calls. This approach is demonstrated by estimating fatigue RUL in the adhesively bonded joint. The accuracy of probabilistic RUL estimated by SMC is validated by comparing it with RUL estimated by the MCMC and the experimental values. The SMC simulation is run on the cloud and the computational speedup of the SMC is demonstrated.