Concurrent Design for Functional Reliability and Failure Prognosis of Complex Engineered Systems

该奖项的研究目标是创建一种新的系统设计范式，称为弹性驱动系统设计，它能够同时开发可靠的系统功能，并准确预测不确定情况下复杂工程系统的功能故障。适应力意味着感知和承受不良事件的能力，以及从不良事件的影响中恢复的能力。本研究将使用严格的数学公式量化工程弹性，开发预测弹性分析的新方法，并进一步创建新的设计范式，为在系统设计早期阶段考虑系统故障预测和故障缓解/恢复活动提供独特的框架。通过与两个领先的行业合作伙伴的研究合作，研究成果将通过基准设计问题以及解决航空系统和可持续能源系统关键需求的实际设计应用进行验证和演示。如果成功，这项研究将通过开发新的设计理论和工具，导致设计范式从传统的可靠性设计转向弹性设计。研究结果将促进通过在工程系统中设计弹性来预防系统故障的理解。新的系统设计范式可能会刺激一些高科技行业的增长，如数十亿美元的绿色能源发电、通用航空、汽车等，这些行业在系统设计后期遭受灾难性的系统故障和高昂的维护成本。这项研究也将为工程设计、健康监测和故障预测等领域的研究人员提供独特的研究和教育经验，并将在跨学科的学习环境中培养学生。将完成广泛的传播和推广计划，重点是促进数据共享，吸引学生从事工程职业和研究机会，以及妇女和代表性不足群体的参与。

The research objective of this award is to create a new system design paradigm, referred to as resilience-driven system design, which enables concurrent developments of reliable system functions and accurate prognosis of function failures of complex engineered systems under uncertainty. Resilience implies the ability to sense and withstand adverse events, and to recover from the effects of the adverse events. This research will quantify engineering resilience with a rigorous mathematical formula, develop new methods for predictive resilience analysis, and further create a new design paradigm that offers a unique framework to consider prognosis of system failures and failure mitigation/recovery activities in the early system design stage. The research findings will be validated and demonstrated using benchmarking design problems, as well as practical design applications addressing the critical demands in aviation systems and sustainable energy systems based on the research collaborations with two leading industry partners. If successful, this research will lead to a design paradigm shift from conventional design for reliability to design for resilience by developing new design theory and tools. The research results will promote the understanding on preventing system failures through designing resilience into engineered systems. The new system design paradigm will likely stimulate growth in several high technology industries such as the multi-billion dollar green energy generation, general aviation, automobile, and more which suffer from catastrophic system failures and high maintenance costs at the post system design stages. This research will also offers unique research and educational experiences for researchers across the fields of engineering design, health monitoring and failure prognosis, and will train students in an interdisciplinary learning environment. A wide range of dissemination and outreach programs will be accomplished, with emphasis on promoting data sharing, attracting students to engineering career and research opportunities, and participation from women and underrepresented groups.