Aircraft Fuel Collector Pipe Disconnection Detection Using Fuel Trends
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Solution Overview
Problem
The disconnection of a pipe from an injection pump in an aircraft's fuel collector, although not immediately affecting operation, leads to medium- or long-term wear and potential damage, necessitating costly repairs and grounding of the aircraft.
Innovation Solution
A method and device using a receiver, processor, and transmitter to monitor fuel quantity in the collector, classify values as normal or abnormal, compute a health indicator based on a sliding window of values, and compare it with thresholds to detect pipe disconnection, transmitting a warning when necessary.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the pipe is mechanically separated from the injection pump, then the fuel system can continue operating, but the collector suffers medium- or long-term wear and potential damage
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary detection of the pipe disconnection state by monitoring fuel quantity trends before significant damage occurs to the collector. The health indicator computation and threshold comparison enable early warning, allowing maintenance personnel to intervene before severe wear or damage accumulates.
Solution Approach 2:
The system establishes a feedback loop where fuel quantity measurements are continuously monitored, classified as normal or abnormal, and used to compute a health indicator. This feedback mechanism enables ongoing assessment of the pipe connection status and triggers warnings when disconnection is detected, allowing for timely maintenance intervention.
2Reliability
If fuel quantity monitoring is implemented to detect pipe disconnection, then maintenance can be alerted timely, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the existing fuel quantity measurement capability of the aircraft to perform self-diagnosis of the pipe connection status. By leveraging already-available sensors and data, the system avoids adding separate complex detection hardware while still achieving reliable disconnection monitoring through health indicator computation based on fuel quantity trends.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes a receiving step for receiving a value of the quantity of fuel present in the collector, a processing step including a sub-step for classifying the value received in the receiving step as a normal value, or as an abnormal value, a sub-step for computing the value of a health indicator, based on the received value, as well as on a predetermined number of values received beforehand, and a sub-step for comparing the value of the health indicator with a threshold to be able to detect a disconnection state, as well as a warning step for transmitting a warning in the event of the detection of a disconnection state, the method allowing, by taking into account the quantity of fuel present in the collector, reliable detection of a disconnection state and allowing operators, notably maintenance operators, to be warned.