Innovative Approaches for Improving Progressive Damage Modeling and Structural Life Prediction of Airframes

Current damage tolerance analysis methods are often only applicable over a short growth regime and require extensive calibration with test data. A novel methodology proposed by Vasudevan et al, based on a two-parameter method known as the unified crack growth model, improves these shortcomings. The NextGen team seeks to integrate the unified crack growth model with the AeroLabTM advanced CAE software framework to create a robust damage tolerance analysis module. The finite element capabilities of the AeroLabTM system will allow the stress intensity factors for the crack front to be calculated easily for complex crack geometries and complex loadings. The benefit to the user is the ease of creating robust real world solutions that converge with minimal effort within an integrated CAE software environment.