Structural Health Monitoring Methods for Aircraft Structural Integrity

Fatigue cracks in multi-layer structures are a major concern for aircraft structures made of metals. Conventional approaches require disassembling and re-assembling parts for inspection. In the past several years, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) technology has emerged from the research environment into initial applications in a wide variety of fields and can help alleviate this inspection burden. In this program Acellent has proposed to develop an innovative SHM based Multi-Physics-Based Intelligence Sensing System for Fatigue and Fastener Crack Detection in Multi-Layer structures to address fatigue crack detection under uncertainties related to environment, geometry, loading and boundary conditions etc. The goal is to accurately and reliably detect, locate and characterize corner cracks originating from fastener holes in multi-layer structures. The system will be designed for safe and optimum performance in aircraft and is supported by Boeing for future implementation on aircraft structures in concurrence with the U.S. Air Force Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP) requirements. Phase I demonstrated the feasibility of detecting cracks smaller than 0.1 in a lab environment. Phase II will focus on development of the complete system & testing, creating a complete prototype of the system and demonstrating capabilities in operational environments in compliance with the ASIP requirements.