Health Conscious Structures for Zero-Maintenance Rotorcraft Platforms

The objective of the integrated research plan presented herein is to demonstrate that the innovative Multi-scale and Multi-physics Experimental Mechanics (MMEM) approach developed at Drexel University to identify early damage precursors and determine data trends to be used in a modeling framework for reliable Remaining Useful Life Predictions, can be extended in Phase II, and with the assistance of AlphaSTAR Corporation, University of Maryland and several industrial partners (General Atomics, Piasecki Aircraft Corporation, Boeing) to the component level. In fact, this extension in planned to not only apply to constant amplitude fatigue testing, as requested in the topic description, but to several vibrational loading scenarios that better approximate real operational conditions. Furthermore, an extension from the metallic material chosen in Phase I (Al 7075-T651) which will continue to be investigated in Phase II, to a composite material case will be made, with the intend to demonstrate that both the technology and the modeling framework developed in this broad partnership are applicable across materials and therefore implementable to a variety of structures of interest to ARL. This technology has the potential to overcome the limitations of conventional, costly, time-consuming, operator dependent, off-line and down-time requiring approaches.