Regression-Based Modeling of a Fleet of Gas Turbine Engines for Performance Trending

Module performance analysis is a well-established framework to assess changes in the
health condition of the components of the engine gas-path. The primary material of the
technique is the so-called vector of residuals, which are built as the difference
between actual measurement taken in the gas-path and values predicted by means of an
engine model. Obviously, the quality of the assessment of the engine condition depends strongly
on the accuracy of the engine model.

The present paper proposes a new approach for data-driven modelling of a fleet of engines
of a given type. Such black-box models can be designed by operators such as airlines and
third-party companies. The fleet-wide modelling process is formulated as a regression problem
that provides a dedicated model for each engine in the fleet, while recognising that all
engines are of the same type. The methodology is applied to a virtual fleet of engines generated
within the ProDiMES environment. The set of models is assessed quantitatively through the
coefficient of determination and is further used to perform anomaly detection.