Advanced Prognostic Health Management Technologies Using Integrated Detection Techniques with Physics of Failure Mode

The proportion of fatigue life that is expended during fatigue crack nucleation is significant in the materials and loading typical of aircraft structural components. The ability to measure or compute the time for fatigue damage to nucleate active fatigue cracks would allow the enhanced service usage of individual aircraft components, on-condition based maintenance, and flexibility in inspection/maintenance/repair scheduling. TRI/Austin and AP/ES Inc. propose the development of a structural prognostics and health management system that combines local measurements of properties of interest with the capability to model crack nucleation and growth, all integrated within a miniaturized onboard system weighing only a few pounds. The TRI team’s approach is to combine multiple sensor technologies with proven physics-based modeling on a self-contained system for a complete health assessment and prognostic capability. The TRI team combines the TRI experience in developing nondestructive inspection technologies suitable for miniaturization on TRI’s LAHMP™ family of PHM systems with the AP/ES capability in structural modeling and prediction.