Modeling remaining useful life and predictive maintenance of competition failure systems with accelerated shocks damage

Systems such as wind turbine blades are subject to both natural degradation under normal operational loads and random shocks from the external environment during their service life. The occurrence of random shocks exacerbates the degree of system degradation, significantly increasing the risk of system failure. This creates competing failure modes: soft failure from cumulative degradation and hard failure from shocks. This study models their relationship, predicts Remaining Useful Life (RUL), and formulates Predictive Maintenance (PdM) strategies. It first develops hard failure and soft failure models, then a competing failure model and RUL predictor. A hybrid strategy integrating Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) and PdM is proposed with a decision model. Validated via wind turbine blades, comparisons show neglecting accelerated shock damage in systems with degradation-dependent shock resistance causes inaccurate strategies and unforeseen economic losses.