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M ATTHIAS B UDERATH 2
An overview of the aircraft design and maintenance process is given with specic
emphasis on the fatigue design as well as the phenomenon of the ageing aircraft observed
over the life cycle. The different measures taken to guarantee structural integrity along
the maintenance process are addressed. The impact of structural health monitoring as a
means of possibly revolutionizing the current aircraft structural monitoring and design
process is emphasized and comparison is made to jet engines and helicopters, where
health monitoring has already found the respective breakthrough.
Keywords: fatigue; aircraft; structures; monitoring; sensors
1. Introduction
Fatigue of aerostructures has been an issue since the early twentieth century. Once
accumulation of damage resulting from cyclic loads could be proven to be valid,
aircraft were specically designed such that they would withstand the loads for a
dened life without visible cracks. Progress achieved in fracture mechanics has
been then taken advantage of in a way such that damage (e.g. cracks) can be
allowed to be present in the structure, as long as its propagation can be controlled.
This has led to lighter weight design, which is always a major design driver for
aircraft but has also required more and scheduled inspection to be done over the
aircrafts operational life. The balance between gain through lighter weight versus
loss resulting from enhanced inspection effort has still been positive with regard to
direct operating cost (DOC). This is roughly speaking the way aerostructures are
handled nowadays with respect to their integrity. There is a well-established
design and maintenance procedure for all this, which has resulted in codes of
practice, procedures and handbooks having been established and improved over
decades (Anon. 1995, 2005; MIL-Handbook 5; http://www.esdu.com).
Much was learned from dramatic aircraft accidents that happened in the past
such as with the Comet in 1954 (fracture mechanics and damage tolerance), the
Aloha Airlines Boeing 737-200 (ageing aircraft) and two older generation Boeing
747 from Japan Airlines in 1985 (insufcient repair) and China Airlines 2002
* Author for correspondence (c.boller@shefeld.ac.uk).
One contribution of 15 to a Theme Issue Structural health monitoring.
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Fatigue in aerostructures
563
564
E
F
G
stress
stress
B
C
strain
H
A
E
H
A
Figure 1. Rainow hysteresis cycle counting method based on stresses and strains.
(b ) Load spectra
Fatigue life of materials and components such as described in the preceeding
paragraphs is usually determined under constant amplitude loading. Components operated in service are, however, usually subject to variable loading. The
load spectrum a component will have to anticipate therefore needs to be
characterized. This can be done in a way that the time domain strain signal
recorded is analysed according to well-dened loading cycle counting procedures
on a similar type component. The most recent and possibly now also most widely
accepted one is the rainow cycle counting procedure where each loading cycle
can be dened as a closed hysteresis loop along the stressstrain path and the
hysteresis can be characterized in terms of stress amplitude and mean stress,
respectively (gure 1). Different classes of stress amplitude and mean stress are
then dened, which allow determination of the respective distribution of
hysteresis loops recorded and thus comparison of different load sequences.
Load spectra are usually dened during the design phase of a component. In
many cases, they are based on the experience gathered in the past, possibly
topped by some additional loading conditions assumed for the new component.
Load cases have also been standardized in a variety of cases and specically in
aerospace such as with TWIST (civil aircraft), FALSTAFF (military ghters)
and HELIXFELIX (helicopters).
Loads and load sequences on components or better systems such as an aircraft
are usually measured at a very few discrete locations. For the variety of
remaining locations being prone to fatigue damage on the aircraft system, load
sequences have to be determined along transfer functions, which may be ideally
done nowadays when digital models of the aircraft are available.
(c ) Fatigue life evaluation
Fatigue life evaluation, especially when it is done numerically requires a load
spectrum, a description of the stress concentration for notches of the
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
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Fatigue in aerostructures
fatigue design
slow crack
propagation
fail safe
crack stopper
multiple load
path
566
the loading spectrum, the component has to be reassessed. This can be limited to
a numerical evaluation only, resulting in a reduced allowable fatigue life or may
even require specic inspection using non-destructive testing procedures.
Damage tolerant design allows for a damage to grow. This may be either
achieved such that a crack may grow at any time up to a certain length where it
will then be stopped by a crack stopper or the component will have fractured and
the loads transferred by that component will be transferred by some other
component (multiple load path). Damage tolerance can however also be based on
assuming a crack to be available at a badly inspectable location and to determine
how much the crack is allowed to grow until it nally reaches a critical stage.
3. The aircraft fatigue design process
(a ) The process by itself
Design of complex engineering structures such as aircraft is an iterative process.
It starts with the customer expressing the requirements, followed by a design
concept. This design concept then needs to be analysed which again may result in
modications to be made with regard to the customer requirements. This process
is also often termed as the design wheel.
Once the conceptual design is available more emphasis is laid on aspects such
as aerodynamics, weight or propulsion within the initial layout. It is only in a
next step called revised layout where structural design together with landing
gear (in the case of aircraft), cost and others becomes relevant. Solid-state
structural aspects therefore come in at a relatively late stage in design. The
major task with structures is to guarantee that structural integrity and
performance is guaranteed all throughout the life of the system designed. This
requires a good knowledge of past experience as well as powerful tools to estimate
future performance.
A more detailed view into the fatigue design process is given in gure 3. It
shows that fatigue analysis has to be done at least in two steps. Along the rst
step, a fatigue analysis is done which is based on the preliminary loading spectra,
being mainly based on the available g-spectrum and read across results from
past experience. This at least allows denition of rst allowable stress levels for
the different components being considered which again allows roughly the
appropriate fatigue design shape to be found. It is at this stage where the
so-called design allowables are generated. Experimental data required usually
come from data generated in the past on either the materials and components
considered or if not directly available, at least determined on similar materials.
In a limited number of cases, material or component data may be experimentally
generated at that stage.
Along a second step, fatigue analysis is done in further detail. This is when
stress analysis of the whole structure and thus detailed design has been done, and
thus load transfer functions as well as geometric limitations are known. Material
and component data need to be generated experimentally in case sufcient
experience has not been gathered up to that point of design.
Once an aircraft has been entirely designed, it is in principal ready to be built.
However, to fully understand how the complete aircraft structure performs under
close to real loading conditions, this structure has to be assessed on the ground
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
composite set of
training missions
asymmetric manoeuvre
spectrum
design g-spectrum
fatigue analysis
= allowable stress levels
results of
component testing
fatigue analysis
calculation of:
safe fatigue life
reserve factor in stress
various updates
1. due to definition of FCS
and response calculations
2. due to flight load survey
unified stress analysis
Fatigue in aerostructures
preliminary loading
spectra
use of g-spectrum
read across from
previous projects
undercarriage usage
spectrum
selection of fatigue
critical section
detail stresses
detail design
stress concentration
surface treatment
etc.
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along a major airframe (full scale) fatigue test (MAFT; gure 4). The airframe
structure is mounted on a test rig and is loaded repeatedly by different loading
cylinders according to the loading combinations and sequences for the duration
of the aircrafts qualied life times the security factor, which in the case of the
example shown in gure 3 would be 6000 ight hours!3Z18 000 ight hours.
The aircraft structure is inspected regularly and any cracks or damage monitored
is fed back for redesign of the aircraft structure or amendments to the
maintenance procedures.
A chronology of the aircraft structure fatigue verication process is given in
gure 5. It shows that loads and fatigue assessment are the result of an iterative
process and thus appear several times. It further shows that MAFT is not even
nished when the rst ight is done and may even not be nished when the rst
aircraft enters into service with the customer.
Since the operational life of military aircraft has increased signicantly over the
past years with 50 years due to become standard and up to 100 years to be
discussed for specic cases (e.g. the B-52 bombers) a fatigue assessment becomes
appropriate once the aircraft type is close to reaching its mid-operational life. This
is mainly required because operational loads resulting from aircraft modications,
change in payloads, ight envelops or ight environment may have signicantly
changed over that rst period of the operational life and may have implications on
the aircrafts remaining operational life. In some of the cases, an aircraft structure
taken out of service is therefore reassessed in a so-called mid-life update MAFT.
4. The aircraft structure support process
(a ) Inspection sequences
Aircraft, civil as well as military, are inspected according to well-prescribed
procedures. It starts with a pre- and post-ight visual inspection of the aircraft
and ends up in a full dismantling or at least disassembly of major components
such that fatigue, corrosion or wear can be determined at any of the damage
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
Fatigue in aerostructures
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test resultsmodifications
570
as an initial crack for determining the allowable crack propagation life. If the
initial crack length could be determined at shorter length the allowable crack
propagation life would become longer, which would result in longer inspection
intervals or, if this is not desirable, in higher allowable stresses which would
result in lower weight.
The same phenomenon exists with complex inaccessible structural components. An example for this is frames and stringers behind galleys and toilets.
Since the effort is too high to dismantle the galleys and toilets for inspecting the
frames and stringers integrity, the frames and stringers have to be considered to
be fully broken for the damage tolerance analysis and the detectable initial crack
is a small crack on the fuselage panels surface that once being there, propagates
at relatively high speed and thus only allows for a relatively short inspection
interval. If these stringers or frames were inspectable, a much longer crack
propagation life, and thus inspection interval, could be allowed (Schmidt &
Schmidt-Brandecker 2001).
(c ) Changes in operational conditions
A review of the usage experience of specically ghter aircraft reveals that a
number of features are changing within the lifetime of the aircraft where the
following can have specically an inuence on loads:
mission changed or added,
ight envelope expanded,
role equipment changed or added,
increased weight,
conguration changes,
increased engine thrust, and
possibly others.
These changes become obvious when looking at the different variants of a
ghter aircraft having been introduced after it has been launched where a sample
of such a scenario is shown for the Panavia Tornado in gure 6.
This enhanced generation of variants has further justied the implementation
of load monitoring systems, of which the rst generation has been introduced
with Panavia Tornados.
Civil aircraft are usually anticipating less variation in their design over the
lifetime especially with regard to their operational conditions. The major operational
change is the conversion of civil airliners such as the Airbus A300 and A310 or
Boeing 727, 747, 757 or 767 from passenger to cargo congurations, or recently also
the consideration to convert used Boeing 767 into air refuelling tankers.
(d ) Loads monitoring and resulting implications
As mentioned above, operational loads monitoring systems
increasingly popular with ghter aircraft (Krau 1988; Hunt &
and have partially also been considered and developed for
(Ladda & Meyer 1991). Major tasks and objectives for loads
ghter aircraft include
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
are becoming
Hebden 2001)
civil aircraft
monitoring in
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UK ADV (CSP)
UK ADV
UK IDS
GR1
UK ADV
UK RECCE
GR1A
MARITIME
GR1B
UK RECCE
GR1A
MARITIME
GR1B
UK IDS GR1
UK MLU
GR4
UK MLU
GR4A RECCE
GE IDS
GE RECCE
GE ECR
GE IDS
GE RECCE
GE ECR
IT IDS
IT IDS
IT ECR
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81 82 83 84 85
86
87 88 89
90 91
92 93 94 95 96 97
98 99
in-service measurements,
fatigue life evaluation, and
maintenance planning.
Data recorded include either the time domain strain signal monitored by a
strain gauge at a dened location or the time domain signal from a variety of
sensors already built in for monitoring ight parameters which are then used to
determine the load sequence by use of the aircrafts load transfer functions. Data
recorded on the aircraft are downloaded by a ground-loading unit and are
processed accordingly. This is mainly done in the way that a rainow cycle
counting procedure is applied to identify the different cycles, which are then
accumulated and stored in the respective rainow matrix that nally allows one
to characterize the loading spectrum the aircraft has gone through.
Recording and processing of all these data can accumulate a signicant
amount of work and it is thus that strategies have been developed which include
the following three types of aircraft tracking:
individual aircraft tracking (IAT),
selected aircraft tracking (SAT), and
temporary aircraft tracking (TAT).
IAT is performed on 100% of the aircraft and is based on a limited set of data
called the pilot parameter set (PPS). SAT is only performed on 10% of the
aircraft and includes recording of the full parameter set (FPS). TAT is performed
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
572
1400
1200
MAFT
Squadrons
squadrons
1000
800
load (kN)
squadrons
In Service SAT
in-service
SAT
600
400
in-service SAT
200
0
200
400
600
0
1.0
1.0 103
1.0 104
1.0 102
accumulated cycles /1000 flight hours
1.0 10 5
1.0 106
Figure 7. Comparison of MAFT load spectrum compared with spectra recorded in different
squadrons.
on less than 10% of the aircraft (sometimes even just 1%) and includes FPS
extended by strain measurements at highly specied locations on the aircraft.
The principal idea behind this concept is to validate the fatigue consumption
calculation with the limited amount of ight data available through the
calculation performed by FPS.
The loads data monitored are of multiple values. In a rst step, they can be used
for comparing the actual load spectrum own with the design or qualication
spectrum such as used along MAFT (gure 7). The data shown in gure 7 indicate
that the squadrons have so far neither exceeded their MAFT qualication
spectrum nor are they own as severe as the MAFT spectrum has been congured
to be. Furthermore, the squadrons IAT spectra tend to be slightly more
conservative when compared to the more detailed in-service SAT data. With
respect to prognostics, the monitored spectra can be used to extrapolate the
spectrum up to the incident when the initially dened fatigue life expressed in ight
hours has been achieved. Further to that it allows determination in a prognostic
sense of how much residual life may still exist in a case where the prescribed
number of ight hours has already been achieved but the spectrum the aircraft
experienced was less severe when compared to the design spectrum.
(e ) Mid-life updates
Mid-life updates are measures more popular with regard to military aircraft.
It stems from the fact that military aircraft are own over a much longer
period when compared to commercial aircraft and that the operational
environment as well as technology itself has signicantly changed over time.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
Fatigue in aerostructures
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It has, therefore, become increasingly popular with some aircraft to revisit the
whole aircraft system regarding the aircraft equipment and design. With
Panavia Tornado, this has been done mainly as a result of using this aircraft in
many more roles and ight durations than anticipated initially; ying it in
and even exporting it to regions of the world possibly never considered
initially, and upgrading it with a variety of new avionics, electronics and
reconnaissance equipment.
With respect to the aircrafts structure, this has resulted in reperforming a
MAFT with a signicantly used aircraft taken out of service to mainly determine
the residual life as well as the locations the aircraft structure might be prone to
fatigue damage in the longer term. Further to this, maintenance plans have been
established according to which major components of the safe-life designed
aircraft are replaced by new ones. Although these components do not show any
cracking, as a result of the well-known scatter in fatigue life they may last much
longer than the operational lives achieved, the components have to be removed
because they have been designed to be crack free.
(f ) Ageing aircraft
The ageing aircraft issue discussed more from an academic point of view
for a decade so far became fully apparent through the Aloha Airlines Boeing
737-200 accident in 1988. Up to that time damage (e.g. cracks) was
considered to appear at single stress raisers such as rivet holes and crack
propagation was assumed to start from a single crack which nally also
dened the inspection period (gure 8). What was not considered was the
fact that in an aged and thus signicantly loaded structure with a variety of
notches such as a rivet line, the likelihood of more than one crack generating
from each of the different holes is signicantly increased when compared to
the pristine material. This multi-cracked conguration, which has also been
denominated as multi-site damage, leads to a much shorter crack
propagation life, which is schematically shown in gure 8 and has to be
considered with regard to the inspection intervals whenever operation of an
ageing aircraft is considered.
The conclusion from years of assessing aged aircraft was that aircraft can be
inspected according to the traditional procedures up to a dened age but then
have to be inspected more carefully. This more detailed and mainly more
frequent inspection does not have to take place for the whole aircraft but for
specic components and areas of the aircraft which are specically prone to
damage. Figure 9 shows, as an example, some of the areas which have been
identied in that regard for the Airbus A300.
An aspect to be mentioned in that regard is the management of the aircraft
airworthiness within the ageing aircraft process. Major activities within this
include:
direct inspections with regard to fatigue cracks,
direct inspections and sampling programmes to determine the condition of the
aircraft structure as well as its equipment, and
prepare corrosion prevention plans (CPP).
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
574
crack growth
periods
initiation
of MSD
single crack
MSD
Onset
of MSD
strength
ultimate
critical
residual
single crack
multiple cracks
flights
detectable
life (flights)
normal inspection
stringer run-outs
longitudinal and
circumferential joints
front pressure
bulkhead
successive frames
wing/fuselage
attachment
nose landing gear bay
Figure 9. Fatigue damage susceptible areas in ageing Airbus A300 aircraft.
The importance of these activities increases signicantly with the age of the
aircraft, which mainly results in an increase of information handling and
processing. The directions issued with regard to detecting fatigue cracks depend
greatly on the monitoring techniques being available, while the sampling
programmes turn out to become a knowledge base for any experience gathered
with the aircraft eet and hopefully shared among the different aircraft operators
as well as the aircraft assembler, maintenance organizations and airworthiness
authorities. It is only on the basis of such a knowledge base that effective CPPs
as well as repair methods can be congured, certied and nally applied.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
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576
RIU
(reconfigurable interface)
ASH
aircraft system health
EHM
engine health monitoring
PMDS/ MDP
arising
off aircraft data
SPS(HM)
secondary power system
health monitoring
arising
ASH
SHM
arising
consumption data
EFLogSW
Eurofighter logistics software
packages
EHM
ExCS
LOG
SPS
NDI
AIS
(2*)
System services
system
Services
industry
Figure 10. Engineering support system information process routes for Euroghter Typhoon.
SHM
structural health monitoring
Fatigue in aerostructures
577
receive more continuous information from these components. In Valeika (2003), this
is compared to a situation where all kidneys would have to be replaced for all
55-year-old people because in 0.1% of the cases damage to kidneys has been
observed. Why do not we apply such principles for human beings also on aircraft?
The answer is quite simple. Human beings have orders of magnitude more sensors
than aircraft have. Their sensors are orders of magnitude more primitive than the
few sensors we use today in aircraft. Sensors in human beings are highly redundant
while the ones in aircraft are mainly not. Biologic sensors can regenerate themselves
by self-healing which the ones in engineering cannot. These are just some of the
differences between biology and engineering, so the logic questions with respect to a
revolution in maintenance technology arising from this are as follows.
Can we integrate sensors into the structure that will give us more efcient
information than we have today?
Are there low-cost simple sensors around which can be integrated into structures
in high quantities and would provide the sufcient redundancy?
Will it be possible to process the high quantity of information generated?
Will this revolution in maintenance through structure-integrated monitoring be
benecial for the operator without compromising safety?
The answer to all of these four questions is: yes. An explanation on how this can
be achieved is given subsequently in conjunction with what can be denominated as
advanced aircraft SHM.
SHM is considered today to be the integration of sensors into structural
components that allow continuous monitoring of the structure combined with
automated advanced signal processing. To keep consistency with established designs
in engineering, SHM is based on the engineering design principles applied nowadays
and tries to automate and extend the monitoring process to the benet of the
engineering system considered. It uses sensors such as optical bres, piezoelectric
elements, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) or possibly even nanostructures to just name some of the ones being mentioned most. These sensors allow
monitoring of strains, acoustics, electrical elds, temperature, pressure, humidity,
chemicals and possibly more. Information is retrieved either by wires but more
recently even wireless. Sensor signals are processed using advanced data acquisition
cards and multiplexers combined with FFT-analysers, wavelets, genetic algorithms
and articial neural networks to again just mention a few. Further information on
what is ongoing can be found in a textbook (Staszewski et al. 2003) as well as in the
proceedings of conferences (Balageas 2002; Chang 2003).
(a ) What could be monitored?
Since design principles in engineering are very much established and
monitoring is just a consequence from all this, the central question with regard
to monitoring results in: what are the design parameters which we have to
assume in design and which we are thus most lacking, with regard to more light
weight and cost-effective design?
All structural designs are based on loads (static as well as cyclic) which we have to
assume prior to conguring the structure. These loads do not have to be limited to
mechanical loads only. They can also include other environmental loads such as
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
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humidity, pressure and even a variety of different type of liquids. So far, MEMS
sensors have been specically developed for corrosion monitoring (Wilson et al.
2001) and are currently evaluated in a longer-term in-service test on a Delta
Airlines Boeing 767 (Trego 2003).
(c ) Damage monitoring
Damage is monitored by non-destructive means. Conventionally, this requires
dismantling of most of the structural system since most of the areas prone to
damage are very much hidden and thus difcult to access. It is therefore more
dismantling and reassembly which cause the relatively large effort for inspection
when compared with the monitoring effort for nding the damage itself with an
NDT technique. Sensors fully integrated or adapted to the structure to be
monitored that remotely send out the monitoring signal upon request can therefore
help minimize the current dis- and reassembly effort required to the situation
where damage is truly detected and repair is unavoidable.
To nd out where sensors may be useful for integration and where sensors can
be avoided, the stress distribution map such as shown in gure 11 and specically a
damage distribution map of the structure is required as the rst step. Further to
this, any recordings from scheduled maintenance may be useful, that allow
underlining of the analytical results or extension of the information pool, which is
specically relevant when considering corrosion damage.
Monitoring with structure-integrated sensors can be done on the basis of a
variety of different physical parameters. To keep compatibility with state-of-theart NDT techniques in aeronautics, ultrasonics and eddy current are the most
popular techniques.
Ultrasonic and thus acoustic waves can be sent into structures by attaching
and/or integrating piezoelectric elements to and/or into a structural component.
Acoustic waves are sent out by the piezoelectric element where Lamb waves are
possibly one of the most efcient since they operate as guided waves. The reected
and/or transmitted signal can then be again recorded by a piezoelectric element.
Systems like this have been made commercially available such as the Smart
Layere from Acellent Technologies (http://www.acellent.com) where piezoelectric elements are positioned according to structural needs on a Kapton
Layer and are electrically wired by copper wiring using PCB techniques for the
manufacturing process. A variety of aircraft components have been monitored this
way where examples are given in Boller et al. (2001) and Betz et al. (2004).
The acoustic waves emitted do not necessarily have to be sensed by piezoelectric
elements. Fibre optic sensors will do it as well and here specically FBG sensors
are catching up (Ihn & Chang 2004). This type of sensor will be specically
considered in areas where electromagnetic interference may be of concern or where
other parameters may be useful to be monitored with the same sensor (e.g. strain
or temperature). MEMS is another type of sensor that can be used in that context
as well. A very fast and efcient way of monitoring is also laser scanning
vibrometry (Staszewski et al. 2004). In that case, a laser scans the surface of the
component to be monitored with respect to the Lamb wave going through and can
thus detect changes in the Lamb wave propagation due to damage. This method is
however limited in having the surface of the component accessible, i.e. the effort of
dismantling and reassembly may often still prevail.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
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There are also eddy current sensors and arrays available that can be attached to
structures (Washabaugh et al. 2002). These sensors are shaped-eld sensors designed
as conductive metallic windings which are placed on a carrier such as Kaptone using
micro-fabrication techniques. A magnetic eld is generated from one of these
windings which is then recorded by the other windings. This allows monitoring of
crack propagation in metallic structures. The system can also be extended to a highresolution eddy current imaging system by introducing a single spatial wavelength or
periodic, square-wave inductive drive winding with a linear array of inductive sensing
elements. Further to this, the wavelength of the magnetic wave can be varied which
allows detection of cracks, inclusions and corrosion even in thicker metallic
components. The system has been proven to work on cracked aluminium panels,
around rivet holes and on a C-130 ight deck chine plate.
There are also the more passive methods being discussed, where acoustic
emission is possibly the most widely explored (http://www.ultra-scs.com; Saniger &
Dupuis 2002). This method, which listens to the noise being generated through
a crack by monitoring the respective stress waves being generated allows one to
use the piezoelectric elements mentioned before. However, these stress waves are
only generated when either high loads are applied to the structure, which is
relatively seldom in the case of the randomly loaded structures of an aircraft, or
the structure may be signicantly aged such that the condition of ageing may turn
out to be critical. Further to this, the system must be alert at any time during
in-service so to not miss any of these seldom events. Black outs are therefore not
allowed. Finally, suitable ltering techniques have to be applied such that the
signal resulting from damage can be clearly identied from any other noisy signals
being around. Independent of all this, it may be worth observing the research effort
generated in that eld.
(d ) Systems monitoring
Health monitoring in engineering is not limited to structures only. It also
includes full systems and it may be specically this area where everything
regarding SHM started. Monitoring of gears is one of the big initial areas where
vibrations are monitored and characterized on the basis of frequency spectra and
where changes in these spectra can be related to specic types of damage.
Jet engines have traditionally been monitored for a long time and engine
condition monitoring (ECM) is nowadays standard in jet engines. Systems used in
that regard include the full authority digital control (FADEC), the remote data
concentrator (RDC), the engines spool speed, engine distress monitoring system
(EDMS) and the ingested debris monitoring system (IDMS) (gure 12). With
respect to ECM one of the major philosophies is to take data from control, which
are then fed into the thermodynamic model of the engine and allows parameters
related to engine, compressor and turbine efciency to be determined. These
parameters are observed over time, which allow trends to be recognized. However,
trends based on a single or very limited number of sensors often turn out to be not
sufcient which is why pattern recognition combined with neural networks has
turned out to be of great value. In that case, data from FADEC, RDC and the
engines spool speed have been combined. EDMS and IDMS are sensors that
monitor debris in real time. IDMS monitors the quality of air coming into the
engine, which is an important information regarding environmental loads the
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007)
582
ring 2
exhaust sensor
FADEC
IDMS
RDC
spool
speed
RDC
EDMS
RDC
local bus
(a)
(b)
ring
1 amp.
EHM system
processor
ring
2 amp.
amplitude
frequency
time
Figure 12. Different sources of information for gas turbine monitoring (Fisher 1997).
583
Fatigue in aerostructures
kurtosis
time
Figure 13. Monitoring of a helicopter-bull gear pinion shown as fourth statistical moment
(kurtosis) over time (Larder 1999).
shows such an example where early damage could be clearly identied. All data
recorded are summarized in a database which allows one to gather experience and
to observe specic trends that can further help to improve HUMS.
The need for HUMS in helicopters and getting HUMS implemented into
helicopters already straight away has also driven the idea of an integrated system.
Figure 14 shows the concept with regard to what equipment is required onboard.
As well as accelerometers a main processor unit, a RDC, a cockpit display unit and
a data transfer unit are required, where some of the units may already be on the
helicopter for other purposes. Data are then downloaded on the ground using
either a PCMCIA card, the internet or any other type of networking standards
which then allow one to further process the data in the ground based system and to
store the data in the database.
An issue not to forget is all activity related to regulatory bodies. All components
integrated in the aircraft need to get airworthiness approval and specically if they
are due to operate during ight. Regulatory authorities can be of great help for
implementing advanced technologies, especially if the benets and needs are obvious,
which is denitely the case when reliability of the system such as a helicopter is
improved. The regulation authorities are therefore continuously working on making
HUMS mandatory in helicopters. Further details regarding this can be found at
http://aar400.tc.faa.gov/Programs/agingaircraft/rotorcraft/index.htm.
584
aircraft
signals
tracker
body
acceleration
accelerations
(Ng, Np, Nr)
remote data
concentrator
accelerometers and
track / index sensors
cockpit
display unit
main
processor unit
aircraft signals
ARINC 429
data communication
card (PCMCIA)
ground based
system
RS-422
Figure 14. HUMS equipment proposed for UH-60 (courtesy of BF Goodrich; Watson 2000).
Fatigue in aerostructures
585
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