Failure mode and effects analysis of compressor blades of aeroengines using dempster-shafer evidence theory

Compressor blades are a major component of an aeroengine. Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), especially, the risk priority order of failure modes, is essential in its design. The risk priority number (RPN) has been extensively used to the risk priority order of failure modes. When multiple experts give their different risk evaluation information to one failure mode, which may be imprecise and uncertain, the traditional RPN cannot deal with the problem. In this paper, the modified Dempster-Shafter (D-S) is adopted to aggregate the different evaluation information by considering multiple experts' evaluation opinions, multiple failure modes and three risk factors respectively. The simplified discernment frame is proposed according to the practical application. Moreover, the mean value of the new RPN is used to risk priority order of multiple failure modes. Finally, the method is used to deal with the risk priority evaluation of the failure modes of compressor blades of an aeroengine under multiple sources of different and uncertain evaluation information. The consequence of the method is rational and efficient.