Advancing Durability Testing in Automotive Component through Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Integration

In automotive Powered Door Systems (PDS), the emergence of grinding and clicking noise over time is a common failure mode. This issue typically arises from design or assembly inconsistencies and intensifies due to wear or increased clearance at its component, becoming noticeable to passengers, and causing discomfort. Numerous automotive manufacturers conduct comprehensive durability tests to tackle such issues during the development. Conventional durability tests, however, rely on the manual effort such as visual and auditory inspection at regular intervals, hence, is subjective and inefficient. This study introduces a novel method by the prognostics and health management (PHM) approach to detect anomaly and assess its severity of the noise during the durability test of the PDS, which may improve the reliability of noise detection and reduces the test time by early termination using prognosis capability. The results demonstrate the potential, paving the way for its broader application across various domains to advance testing processes and reliability.