Electromechanical Actuator Test Stand Coupling Design to Support Actuator Prognostic Model Development

Uncertainty assessment and management is becoming an increasingly essential aspect of good prognostic design for engineering complex systems. Uncertainty surrounding diagnostics, loads, and fault progression models is very real and propagating this uncertainty from component-level health estimates to the system-level remains difficult at best. In this work, a test stand is used to conduct real-time failure experiments aboard various aircraft platforms to collect failure response data, expanding the actuator knowledge base that forms the foundation of component health estimations. The research takes a step towards standardizing a test stand design to produce comparable and scalable failure data sets, fostering uncertainty reduction within the electromechanical actuator prognostic model. This paper specifically presents a method to optimize the actuator coupling for a commercially available actuator where a model was built to minimize the coupling deflection and estimate the coupling life. Using this model, researchers can rapidly develop their own electromechanical actuator test stands.