Integrated Structural Methods Addressing Army Aviation Life Prediction Challenges in Composites
Abstract
The Army and Rotorcraft Industry are facing the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) aviation challenge to replace more than 6,300 military vertical lift aircraft over the next 25-50 years. Accurate analysis and prediction methods would reduce development and procurement risk to FVL. In particular, advanced polymeric composites are playing a major role in designing high-performance and lightweight vertical lift structures. However, uncertain remaining useful life of the composite rotor and airframe structures due to complexity of failure mechanisms and susceptibility to manufacturing irregularities which may be precursors to structural damage impose risks that cannot be mitigated exclusively by time-consuming and costly experimental iterations [1]. Consistent with the Army vision for zero-maintenance platforms, fundamental understanding and models for damage progression are needed to reliably detect damage at early stages and predict progression in complex multi-axial/multi-scale environments. Such models would allow for automatic assessment of the condition of composite structure starting from the factory to structural health monitoring (SHM) based assessment in service. It is worth noting that current state of the art in SHM of composite structures suffers from solution uncertainty or multiplicity of the damage scenarios. Validated structural analysis capturing damage phenomena is essential for developing SHM methodology offering unique solutions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 11, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1120635
Entities
People
- Andrew Makeev
- Yuri Nikishkov
Organizations
- University of Texas at Arlington