50 Years of scientific thought on Machine Diagnostics in PolanD anD its influence on MaritiMe aPPlications

Abstract This article presents a condensed outline of how approaches to solving technical diagnostics tasks have changed over the last 50 years. It reviews different approaches to the modelling of wear and tear phenomena that are the subject of diagnosis, and draws attention to groundbreaking papers which are still of topical interest. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of vibroacoustic diagnostics methods, an area in which Polish scientists were among the world’s avant garde. It is also shown how methodologies have changed with the progress of digital signal analysis. The example presented in the second part of the article demonstrates that the well-known and technically important task of diagnosing a gear set can now be solved without looking for a classic state→symptom relationship through an accurate dynamic description of the machine and comparing it with the results of an experiment, but instead by comparing observations at different points in the n-dimensional space with an abstract pattern generated by a sequence of logical transformations. This formulation of the task opens up avenues for AI methods. Attention is paid to the fact that maritime shipping is one of the main fields of application for modern diagnostic methods, and it is shown that the increase in the accuracy of vibroacoustic diagnostics techniques and the correctness of the diagnosis allows for the use of this methodology in marine applications.