Operation survivability of civil aircraft

Abstract

The fulfillment of the standard requirements for fatigue and damage tolerance of aircraft structures is the basis for ensuring their safe operation. The paper analyzes the rules formulated in the U.S. FAA Standards and Recommendation Circulars, Soviet Airworthiness Standards, and Russian Aviation Rules. The main requirements for ensuring the damage safety, damage tolerance, and preventing widespread fatigue damages in operating aircraft structures are stated. The results of studying the multiple site damages of full-scale aircraft structures are presented. The principle of the staged increase in the service life limit of Russian aircraft is considered. The rules of Russia are noted to be harmonized with the rules of the United States and Europe. The values of design service lives, scales of fatigue tests of full-scale structures and flight times in operation of different aircraft types are presented. The required values of the statistical and cyclical fracture resistance of structural materials are substantiated, and the achieved values of these characteristics in modern aluminum alloys are presented.