Research on life consumption assessment for individual aircraft tracking

icaf2023 Tracking Number 68

Life consumption assessment of in-service aircraft is an indirect method to develop the relative relationship between the severity of damage to an individual aircraft, and it is also the most important basic data for Individual Aircraft Tracking (IAT) and life management. Firstly, combining the structural characteristics, material properties and load/environment spectrum of critical fatigue parts of a certain aircraft, a full-scale fatigue test lasting for four times of the Design Service Goal (DSG) was carried out based on the load spectrum derived from measured data of flight test. Secondly, using the load spectrum for full-scale test as the reference spectrum, combined with various damage equivalent calculation formulas, the equivalent damage equation was determined through numerical calculation based on the center of gravity overload suitable for the aircraft. Then, sampling rate and filtering threshold value were comprehensively analysed and finally given in aircraft life calculation, which provides basic input for the implementation of individual aircraft tracking of the fleet. Next, the reference equivalent damage per flight hour (Standard Equivalent Damage Rate) was determined through the calculation of the reference load spectrum and the DSG. It was followed that the equivalent damage per flight hour was then obtained according to the flight parameters for the actual data of each flight, which establishes the relationship between the actual flight data and the fatigue test load spectrum of the aircraft. Then, based on the measured load spectrum, the operational load prediction adopting machine learning was developed, and the accuracy meets the needs of engineering. Finally, the life consumption assessment of the aircraft fleet was given by calculation, including the individual aircraft life consumption of the fleet, the annual life consumption, and the equivalent damage statistics of typical missions and the statistical assessment of life ratios. Keywords: Equivalent damage, Individual Aircraft tracking, Life consumption, Machine learning, Fatigue