Future Roles of Structural Sensing for Aerospace Applications
Abstract
To reduce cost, increase availability, and maintain safety of current and future air vehicle systems, emphasis has been placed on the development of Integrated Systems Health Management (ISHM) techniques. The ISHM process provides the appropriate architecture to determine system level health based on combined assessments of the various subsystem conditions and, as necessary, interacts with flight control systems to ensure mission success. Since the vehicle structure is one of the most critical subsystem, structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques are being developed. These SHM techniques offer unique benefits for both fielded and emerging air vehicle systems. For fielded vehicles, a major sustainment cost driver in the air vehicle fleet today is unscheduled maintenance. By utilizing SHM techniques, DoD intends to migrate to condition-based maintenance instead of the current schedule-based approach. Condition-based maintenance will enable DoD to meet its objective of improving maintenance agility and responsiveness for quicker turnaround times, increasing operational availability, and reducing life cycle total ownership cost. Emerging air vehicle systems will likely utilize advanced materials and advanced structural concepts. Extensive use of composite materials is expected and, to further complicate matters, the composite structures also may include embedded electronics or sensors. Advanced structural concepts include techniques such as morphing structures, which will be integrated with other vehicle systems such as the flight controls. As a result, assessing the current state of these structures will be critical. Applications for emerging air vehicle structures offer the potential to consider SHM in the design process, rather than having to retrofit a SHM system to an existing structure. The current paper discusses the future role of structural sensing for air vehicle applications.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA479860
Entities
People
- Fu-Kuo Chang
- Mark M. Derriso
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory