Materials Degradation and Fatigue in Aerospace Structures

Abstract

This report summarizes research conducted by the Purdue University Schools of Engineering and Science during a four year AFOSR University Research Initiative focused on basic issues dealing with aging aircraft. The coordinated goals of the program fall into four main categories: damage development, prediction of crack growth and interaction failure prevention techniques, and advanced analysis methods. The damage development goals addressed the failure mechanisms of corrosion, fatigue crack formation, and fretting. The general objective of the crack growth and interaction tasks was to develop techniques to predict the growth of service induced cracks and to determine the impact of widespread cracking on damage tolerance. The theme of the failure prevention projects was to develop procedures to extend the operational life of older aircraft by delaying service induced damage. repairing cracked structure, and employing fleet tracking methods to prioritize maintenance actions within a fleet of aircraft. Finally, research was directed at developing advanced analysis methods used in other research tasks. These projects dealt with adding Statistical components to various materials evaluations and structural analyses, and developing ductile fracture criteria relative to aircraft materials and structures.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1997
Accession Number
ADA329663

Entities

People

  • A. F. Grandt Jr.

Organizations

  • Purdue University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Computational Science
  • Fuselages
  • Material Degradation Processes
  • Materials
  • Mechanical Working
  • Mechanics
  • Modulus Of Elasticity
  • Reliability
  • Stress Strain Relations
  • Tensile Strength
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Three Dimensional
  • Transport Aircraft
  • Two Dimensional

Readers

  • Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures.
  • Technical Research and Report Writing.

Technology Areas

  • Space