The project seeks to implement an innovative program for the management of the structural condition of aircraft fleets that includes monitoring of usage (operating load), the structural condition (diagnosis of structural health) and the management of the consumption of its useful life (prognosis of the condition). The integration of the operational loading monitoring (OLM – Operational Monitoring Loading) and the diagnosis of the condition (SHM) will develop new tools that enable the assessment of the structural condition of the aircraft with reduced instrumentation (sensors and data acquisition systems), reducing costs.
The strategy includes:
1) the complete instrumentation of one aircraft;
2) the computation of transfer functions (flight data- operational loading-damage-life consumption);
3) the reduced instrumentation of the remaining fleet (to reduce sensorization costs) and;
4) the integration of data and information on a structural health management platform.
These results define a methodology to implement an effective program of evaluation of the structural condition of critical components. Besides the aspects mentioned above, the instrumentation will allow evaluate and optimize the aircraft’s maintenance plan, once known the severity of operation. The methodology is extensible and applicable to any fleet and aircraft type.
Fleet managers with early access to a complete usage monitoring solution, are able to remove implementation delays and achieve return on investment years in ahead of schedule. This is made possible with Curtiss-Wright proven flexible “fit and forget” hardware and PRODDIA AERO from Stratosphere S.A. The program had as a technological partner the Instituto Superior Técnico from Lisbon.
More Information: http://tb30.stratosphere-technologies.com
