Structural Airworthiness and Life Extension of Aging Aircraft

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Aeronautics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (23 December 2023) | Viewed by 2107

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University Clayton, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
2. ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre on Surface Engineering for Advanced Materials, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
Interests: ageing aircraft; composites; bonded structures; fatigue and failure; additive manufacturing; cold spray
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The current approach to assessing and maintaining the airworthiness of both civil and military aircraft has evolved as a result of a number of high-profile incidents, viz: the 1954 Comet failures, the 1958 B-47 accidents, the 1969 F-111 accident, the 1988 Aloha Boeing 737 accident, etc. The Comet failures resulted in the adoption of fail-safe design; the B-47 accidents resulted in the United States Air Force Aircraft Structural Integrity Program; the F-111 failure led to the introduction of damage tolerance design requirements for military aircraft; the Aloha Boeing 737 accident highlighted the importance widespread fatigue damage and subsequently led to the FAA introducing the concept of a limit of validity (LOV).

That said, the field is still developing and maturing. As such, this Special Issue focuses the state of the art in assessing and extending the life of both civil and military fixed and rotary wing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (drones and loyal wingman aircraft).

Indeed, in March 2019 the US Under Secretary, Acquisition and Sustainment mandated that the US DoD use Additive Manufacturing (AM) to “enable the transformation of maintenance operations and supply chains, increase logistics resiliency, and improve self-sustainment and readiness for DoD forces.” Consequently, this Special Issue will also address the use of AM replacement parts, AM repairs, friction stir welding and laser shock peening to extend operational life.

As such this Special Issue aims to attract World Leading Researchers to address issues covering:

  1. Fleet airworthiness assessment/management;
  2. Durability and damage tolerance assessment (including full-scale and laboratory (coupon) testing and computational aspects);
  3. Crack growth in operational aircraft and in full-scale fatigue tests;
  4. The effect of environmental degradation on airworthiness;
  5. AM parts and limited life AM replacement parts;
  6. The effect of as built and surface finish on the durability of AM parts;
  7. AM repairs, such as cold spray and laser additive repairs;
  8. The use of laser shock and friction stir welding to enhance durability.

Issues associated with metallic, composite and bonded airframes and limited life replacement parts are encouraged. 

Prof. Dr. Rhys Jones
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • aging aircraft
  • durability
  • damage tolerance
  • composite structures
  • bonded structures
  • additive manufacturing
  • cold spray
  • friction stir welding, laser shock peening
  • repair technology, bonded repairs
  • environmental degradation
  • corrosion

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 6312 KiB  
Article
Thoughts on the Importance of Similitude and Multi-Axial Loads When Assessing the Durability and Damage Tolerance of Adhesively-Bonded Doublers and Repairs
by Rhys Jones, Ramesh Chandwani, Chris Timbrell, Anthony J. Kinloch and Daren Peng
Aerospace 2023, 10(11), 946; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace10110946 - 7 Nov 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1586
Abstract
Adhesively bonded doublers and adhesively bonded repairs are extensively used to extend the operational life of metallic aircraft structures. Consequently, this paper focuses on the tools needed to address sustainment issues associated with both adhesively bonded doublers and adhesively bonded repairs to (metallic) [...] Read more.
Adhesively bonded doublers and adhesively bonded repairs are extensively used to extend the operational life of metallic aircraft structures. Consequently, this paper focuses on the tools needed to address sustainment issues associated with both adhesively bonded doublers and adhesively bonded repairs to (metallic) aircraft structures, in a fashion that is consistent with the building-block approach mandated in the United States Air Force (USAF) airworthiness certification standard MIL-STD-1530D and also in the United States (US) Joint Services Structural Guidelines JSSG-2006. In this context, it is shown that the effect of biaxial loads on cohesive crack growth in a bonded doubler under both constant amplitude fatigue loads and operational flight loads can be significant. It is also suggested that as a result, for uniaxial tests to replicate the cohesive crack growth seen in adhesively bonded doublers and adhesively bonded repairs under operational flight loads, the magnitude of the applied load spectrum may need to be continuously modified so as to ensure that the crack tip similitude parameter in the laboratory tests reflects that seen in the full-scale aircraft. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Airworthiness and Life Extension of Aging Aircraft)
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