Originally Posted by
G0ULI
There is a possible alternative which may not have been picked up by the monitoring programs.....Continuous vibration monitoring is great at picking up sudden changes in vibration levels. A sudden jump indicates that something in the rotating system has changed....
The approach of using vibration monitoring to detect the condition of gears or rolling element bearings has been researched by the rotorcraft industry for many years. One thing that makes it difficult in practice is the extremely complex acoustic environment existing in the typical MRGB having dozens of gears and bearings.
Ferrous debris detection systems work well if engineered properly. So I think they will continue to be used for the foreseeable future.