Aircraft are known to be highly complex systems requiring an extensive amount of monitoring because of their safety criticality. To reduce direct operating or life cycle cost a lot of effort was spent on automated monitoring systems. On-board loads monitoring systems for aircraft as well as built in test equipment in avionics systems are already available nowadays. On-board loads monitoring systems however do not monitor damage in-situ and on-board. This still has to be performed on-ground by manual nondestructive testing (NDT) inspection. Smart structures technology is a means which can support development towards automated in-situ monitoring of damage even on-board the aircraft. The paper starts with a brief view on aircraft maintenance cost, describes existing aircraft health and usage monitoring systems as well as NDT procedures, and explains how these procedures could be combined to a smart system using smart materials and structures technology. A strategy is proposed how gradual introduction of smart structures technology into structure health monitoring systems can make this new technology beneficial for aircraft operators in short term.
In-Flight Aircraft Structure Health Monitoring Based on Smart Structures Technology
1993
19 pages
Report
Keine Angabe
Englisch
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