Validation of Model-Based Prognostics for Pneumatic Valves in a Demonstration Testbed

Pneumatic-actuated valves play an important role in many applications.When valves are critical to the successful operationof the system, prognostics of these valves becomes extremelyimportant and valuable. In order to facilitate the validationof prognostics algorithms for pneumatic valves, wehave constructed a pneumatic valve testbed for use with acryogenic propellant loading system. The testbed enables theinjection of faults with a controllable fault progression profile.Specifically, we can introduce controllable pneumaticgas leaks, the most common faults associated with pneumaticvalves. We focus on a valve that moves discretely betweenopen and closed position, and is controlled through a solenoidvalve. In this paper, we apply a model-based prognostics approachfor pneumatic valves on the testbed. We demonstratethe approach using real experimental data obtained from thetestbed.