BRAKE CONDITION MONITORING

摘要

System and method for monitoring the applications of the brakes, e.g. of an aircraft to determine brake condition and operate a brake maintenance programme or charge a brake system user. It is desirable to have accurate information for determining the condition and predicting the life of carbon-carbon brake discs. This is important for safety as well as commercial reasons. The number of landings of an aircraft is often used as a determinant for such as lifetime warranties for brake discs and recommended maintenance periods. However, at least for carbon disc brakes, this may not be entirely accurate. For example such brake discs also wear during taxiing. The system and method herein includes monitoring each actuation of the brakes and making a separate record of each actuation of the brakes in which there is relative movement of the facing friction surfaces that cause wear, and from that separate record determining brake usage. The monitoring may include measuring changes and processing the signals to distinguish between those which fall below and those which are above a threshold value. Herein there is also described, a method and apparatus for monitoring a braking system comprising sensing a plurality of braking parameters having values dependent upon wear in the system and different faults of the system, and identifying and recording wear and faults based on combinations of values of said parameters.