Self-lubricating composite bearing liners are used in a range of aerospace systems including fixed wing and rotary wing applications such as a helicopter pitch links. In aerospace applications these bearings are subject to periodic replacement, irrelevant of wear condition, with manual inspections made at set intervals. There is a drive in many areas of aerospace to move from a scheduled replacement plan to an as required approach to increase asset availability and reduce maintenance costs whilst maintaining safety. This has led to a clear research and commercial drive to develop smart bearings that can identify the onset of critical damage and alert an operator of the need for replacement, effectively a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system. This paper presents a novel investigation of composite bearing liners in conjunction with Acoustic Emission (AE). The developed test programme and subsequent analysis clearly demonstrate that it is possible to monitor the complex wear process of the liner material using AE within a laboratory environment. Furthermore, a new approach to analysing AE signals is presented that could be integrated into a SHM system for asset management.

自润滑复合轴承衬套用于一系列航空航天系统，包括固定翼和旋翼应用，例如直升机俯仰连杆。在航空航天应用中，这些轴承需要定期更换，与磨损状况无关，并按设定的时间间隔进行手动检查。航空航天的许多领域都在推动从计划更换计划转向按需方法，以提高资产可用性并降低维护成本，同时保持安全。这导致了开发智能轴承的明确研究和商业驱动，该轴承可以识别严重损坏的开始并提醒操作员需要更换，有效地构建了结构健康监测 (SHM) 系统。本文结合声发射 (AE) 对复合轴承衬套进行了一项新颖的研究。开发的测试程序和随后的分析清楚地表明，可以在实验室环境中使用 AE 监控衬里材料的复杂磨损过程。此外，还提出了一种分析 AE 信号的新方法，可以将其集成到 SHM 系统中以进行资产管理。