Ways to Determine the Structural Resource of Highly Maneuverable Aircraft

Abstract

This paper emphasizes the importance of monitoring aircraft structural fatigue and proposes as paramount the analysis of military aircraft structural constitutive materials aging process, during flight. Aircraft structural health monitoring is defined as an evaluation process for the integrity of key structural components with the sole purpose of enhancing flight safety and mitigating maintenance risks and loses. Nowadays, aircraft are predominantly built from composite materials with at least two layers with different mechanical properties, which combined, result in a new composite material with highly superior resilience and elastic properties. Even though there are great advantages of using composite materials, when it comes to operating military aircraft, a mere visual inspection cannot be sufficient for observing or identifying structural damages within the composite layers of the aircraft. The focus of this study is on improving the process of monitoring the structural condition of highly maneuverable military jet aircraft by using the strain gauge marks methods. Monitoring aircraft structural condition can be easily implemented, both during maintenance and flight missions, by using a wide array of sensors that can generate specific sets of instructions for all processes involved in enhancing flight and maintenance safety. The main concern of implementing a structural evaluation, within aircraft maintenance processes, sits on preventing and not ameliorating incidents and accidents during flight. As a result of the continuous research and testing, it has been proved that the operational resource of the aircraft structure, provided by the manufacturer, can be easily reached in a lot lesser flight hours than initially anticipated, by engaging the aircraft in specific operational missions and, therefore, inflicting pronounced fatigue on the aircraft structure.