Recent and Future Enhancements in NDI for Aircraft Structures (POSTPRINT)
Abstract
The U.S. Air Forces (USAF) Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP) was established in November 1958 in response to in-flight structural failures. Additional failures in the late 1960s, far short of the qualified safe-life, demonstrated that the safe-life approach had shortcomings. The USAF implemented a damage tolerance approach in response to these failures, recognizing that an aircrafts structure has a wide range of initial quality from manufacturing processes plus service induced damage and that the aircraft structure had to be inspectable. The results of the damage tolerance assessments were incorporated into USAF Technical Orders which established inspection and maintenance requirements to maintain structural integrity and to control risk to an acceptable level. Therefore, the execution of effective nondestructive inspection (NDI) is essential to maintain the structural integrity of USAF aircraft and clear guidance is provided in the ASIP standard. This requires new inspection technology to be evaluated to ensure that the inspections are reliable and repeatable when performed by the typical field or depot level inspectors.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 16, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1002178
Entities
People
- Charles Babish
- Charles Buynak
- Eric A. Lindgren
- John Brausch
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory