Experimental and theoretical study of the electrical failures in a fault-tolerant direct-drive servovalve for primary flight actuators

Abstract

The current paper deals with the study of the electrical failures in fault-tolerant flight actuators, with particular reference to the short circuits of the servovalve coils. A high-fidelity model of the servovalve of a modern fly-by-wire actuator is developed and validated through experiments, focusing attention on the characterization of the component dynamics in case of partial and total short circuits of the direct-drive motor coils. The servovalve model is then used to simulate a typical on-ground built-in-test procedure to determine the limit condition for the detection of a partial short circuit. Finally, once different possible combinations of short circuits are injected, the degradation of performances of the whole actuator is characterized through experiments, and the servovalve model is used to justify the test results, highlighting and discussing the effects of the failures on the system dynamics.

Keywords

flight control fault-tolerant actuators direct-drive servovalve failure analysis testing modelling and simulation

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Pratt

R. W.

Flight control systems: practical issues in design and implementation, 2000 (Institution of Engineering and Technology, Stevenage).

Miller

F. G.

Direct drive control valves and their applications. Proceedings of the IMechE International Conference on Aerospace hydraulics and systems, September 1993, pp. 1–16.

Steed

D. J.

Direct drive actuation for primary flight control. Proceedings of the IMechE International Conference on Aerospace hydraulics and systems, September 1993, pp. 17–22.

Trutt

F. C.

Santa Cruz

Kohler

J. L.

Sottile

Prediction of electrical behavior in deteriorating induction motors. IEEE Trans. Ind. Applic., 1993, 29, 1239–1243.

Chen

Zhang

Analysis of electrical faults for switched reluctance motor driver. In Proceedings of the 3rd World Congress on Intelligent control and automation, 2000, Vol. 1, 666–669.

Juricic

Moseler

Rakar

Model-based condition monitoring of an actuator system driven by a brushless DC motor. Control Engng Practice, 2001, 9, 545–554.

Fitzgerald

A. E.

Kingsley

Jr Kusko

Electric machinery: the processes devices and systems of electromechanical energy conversion, 3rd edition, 1971 (McGraw-Hill, New York).

Campbell

The design and application of high energy rare earth permanent magnets. Proceedings of the Electrical Electronics Insulation Conference, 1995, pp. 49–57.

Di Rito

Experimental validation of theoretical and numerical models of a DDV linear force motor. Proceedings of the 3rd FPNI-PhD Symposium, 2004, pp. 105–114.

10.

Dupont

Hayward

Armstrong

Altpeter

Single state elastoplastic friction models. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, 2002, 47(5), 787–792.

11.

Denti

Di Rito

Galatolo

Real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulation of fly-by-wire flight control systems. 25th International Congress of the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS), 2006.

12.

Bonnice

W. F.

Baker

Intelligent fault diagnosis and failure management of flight control actuation systems, NASA Contractor Report 177481, 1988.

13.

Di Rito

Galatolo

Modelling the dynamics of a direct-drive servovalve for fail-operative primary flight control actuators. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Recent advances in aerospace actuation systems and components, 2004, pp. 67–72.