Abstract
Aircraft accidents involving catastrophic fatigue failure have the potential for significant loss of life. The aim of this research was to investigate trends in aircraft fatigue failure accidents to inform aerospace Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system Research and Development (R&D). The research involved collecting 139 aircraft fatigue failure accident reports from the Aviation Safety Network database, which were coded using a directed content analysis. The trends and features of the categorical data were then explored using an ex-post facto study. The results showed that fatigue failure accidents have increased at a rate of (3.4 ± 0.6)×10-2 per year since the 1920’s. Over the period of the study there were 2098 fatalities in 57 fatal accidents, giving (15.1 ± 1.6) fatalities per accident and a fatal accident percentage of (45 ± 10)%. The data indicates that engine failures combined with smaller aircraft and operators should be the focus of SHM R&D. While there is a desire to further improve safety for large transport category aircraft, results indicate that smaller aircraft and operators have seen a relative increase in fatigue failure accidents, and hence are also in need of SHM systems. Engine and undercarriage systems have the greatest number of fatigue failure accidents associated with them, suggesting these should be the focus of SHM R&D.
Highlights
IntroductionThe aim of this work is to understand the need for aerospace vehicle Structural Health Monitoring (SHM)
To inform the Research and Development (R&D) of these systems requires answers to the questions, what are the most common features of aircraft fatigue failure accidents, and how have these changed over time? This understanding will provide a better insight of the specific requirements for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems, and how they can best be utilized for their intended purposes, to improve safety, and increase the service life of aerospace assets
The analysis unexpectantly revealed that fatigue accidents were more common in the early to mid-life of an aircraft, peaking in the 10 to 15-year-old age range and decreasing significantly beyond the age of 20 years; this was statistically significantly different to previous research looking at maintenance accidents previously reported (Khan et al, 2020), highlighting that fatigue failure occurs at younger airframe ages maintenance accidents
Summary
The aim of this work is to understand the need for aerospace vehicle Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) This technology has the ambitious goal of improving the safety and service life of future robust or ageless aerospace vehicles. This understanding will provide a better insight of the specific requirements for SHM systems, and how they can best be utilized for their intended purposes, to improve safety, and increase the service life of aerospace assets. This last point is important, given aircraft have a significant capital cost associated with their acquisition and operation.
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