Today, many ageing aircrafts in air forces of many countries are in service beyond their designed total technical and calendar service life. In general, typical military fighter and trainer aircraft airframe structure is designed for a service life of 20–30 years. The life extension programmes are being undertaken today for ageing aircraft considering the non-utilization of aircraft to its full potential, high acquisition cost of an aircraft limited by defence budget. This paper presents on the total technical life extension of an IAF (operator) trainer aircraft with initial Total Technical Life (TTL) of 8000 h. TTL extension programme has been carried out with operator formed task team including HAL and certifying agencies to extend the TTL of airframe beyond 8000 flight hours. Life extension studies consisted of full airframe (viz. fuselage, wing, tail plane and engine mounts, etc.) with respect to strength and fatigue life analysis margins, full scale fatigue test results, post-test inspection reports, histories of earlier overhaul data, material ageing aspects (considering environmental degradation, corrosion prevention and protective coating, wear and tear), ‘g’ exceedance and hard landing data, incident histories and repair scheme implemented on service aircraft. Additionally, TTL attained two lead aircrafts were strip opened, thorough inspections suggested and results were studied. After these extensive studies, the task force concluded that TTL of trainer airframe can be increased by 500 flight hours. Hence, as per recommendation, TTL of the aircraft extended to 8500 flight hours. Considering the present usage rate in fleet, the extension will ensure availability of trainer aircraft for training in another 4 years, thereby benefitting the operator for performing the intended tasks.
Total Technical Life Extension Techniques for a Trainer Aircraft Airframe
Lect.Notes Mechanical Engineering
2020-10-02
14 pages
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Total technical life (TTL) , Trainer aircraft , Full scale fatigue test (FSFT) , Fatigue modifications (MODs) , Material ageing , Inspection , Crack detection (CD) , Incident histories , Pre-survey Engineering , Solid Mechanics , Tribology, Corrosion and Coatings , Characterization and Evaluation of Materials
The Verification of the Technical Conditions of a Combat-Trainer Jet’s Airframe
DOAJ | 2015
|TIBKAT | 2014
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