Comparing Feature and Trajectory-Based Remaining Useful Life Modeling of Electrical Resistance Heating Wires

Industrial heating significantly contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for a substantial portion of annual emissions. The transition to fossil-free operations in the heating industry is closely linked to advancements in industrial electrical heating systems, especially those using resistance heating wires. In this context, Prognostics and Health Management is crucial for enhancing system reliability and sustainability through predictive maintenance strategies. The integration of machine learning technologies into Prognostics and Health Management has significantly improved the precision and applicability of Remaining Useful Life modeling. This improvement enables more accurate predictions of component lifespans, optimizes maintenance schedules, and enhances operational efficiency in industrial heating applications. These developments are essential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the sector. This paper serves as a guide for conducting Remaining Useful Life modeling for industrial batch processes. It evaluates and compares two methodologies: deep learning-based approaches using full time-series data, such as recurrent neural networks and their variants, and feature-engineering-based methods, including random forest regression and support vector machines. Our results show that the feature-oriented approach performs better overall in terms of predictive accuracy and computational efficiency. The study includes a detailed sensitivity analysis and hyperparameter estimation for each method, providing valuable insights into developing robust and transparent Prognostics and Health Management systems. These systems are crucial in supporting the heating industry’s move towards more sustainable and emission-free operations. The findings reveal that feature-oriented methods are both performant and robust, particularly excelling in handling outliers. The random forest regression model, in particular, demonstrated the highest performance on the test dataset according to the chosen evaluation metrics. Conversely, trajectory-oriented methods exhibited less bias across varying levels of degradation, a helpful characteristic for Prognostics and Health Management systems. While feature-oriented methods tend to systematically underestimate Remaining Useful Life at high true values and overestimate it at low actual values, this issue is less pronounced in trajectory-oriented models. Overall, these insights highlight the strengths and limitations of each approach, guiding the development of more effective and reliable predictive maintenance strategies.