Title: Integration of structural health monitoring with scheduled maintenance of aircraft composite structures

Authors: Xi Chen; He Ren; Cees Bil; Yongquan Sun

Addresses: Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Civil Aircraft Health Monitoring, Shanghai Aircraft Customer Service Co. Ltd. COMAC, 100 Jiangchuan East Road, Shanghai, 200264, China ' Shanghai Aircraft Customer Service Co. Ltd. COMAC, 100 Jiangchuan East Road, Shanghai, 200264, China ' School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institution of Technology (RMIT University), Australia ' Shanghai Aircraft Customer Service Co. Ltd. COMAC, 100 Jiangchuan East Road, Shanghai, 200264, China

Abstract: The current aircraft maintenance philosophy, referred to as scheduled maintenance, follows a preventative strategy in which maintenance tasks are carried out at predetermined intervals or according to prescribed criteria related to safety, operational and economic aspects. Emerging technologies, such as structural health monitoring (SHM), are proposed to reduce long-term maintenance cost and increase aircraft availability. It introduces a timely and automatic diagnostic and prognostic capability which brings substantial changes to the current maintenance philosophy. This study investigates an integrated approach of scheduled maintenance and structural health monitoring by suggesting various logical maintenance procedures. A probabilistic model was established to examine the effects of the structural health monitoring synchronisation with scheduled maintenance and the impact on both safety and economy.

Keywords: structural health monitoring; SHM; scheduled maintenance; composite structures; probabilistic modelling; maintenance cost; maintenance scheduling; aircraft composites; aircraft maintenance; aircraft availability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASM.2015.073525

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, 2015 Vol.8 No.3/4, pp.264 - 283

Received: 29 Nov 2014
Accepted: 25 Apr 2015
Published online: 11 Dec 2015 *

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