Fatigue crack growth spectrum simplification: Facilitation of on-board damage prognosis systems

Better lifetime predictions of systems subjected to fatigue loading are needed in support of the optimization of the costs of life-cycle engineering. In particular, the climate is especially encouraging for the development of safer aircraft. One issue is that aircraft experience complex fatigue loading and current methods for the prediction of fatigue damage accumulation rely on intensive computational tools that are not currently carried onboard during flight. These tools rely on complex models that are made more difficult by the complicated load spectra themselves. This presents an overhead burden as offline analysis must be performed at an offsite facility. This architecture is thus unable to provide online, timely information for on-board use. The direct objective of this research was to facilitate the real-time fatigue damage assessments of on-board systems with a particular emphasis on aging aircraft.;To achieve the objective, the goal of this research was to simplify flight spectra. Variable-amplitude spectra, in which the load changes on a cycle-by-cycle basis, cannot readily be supported by an onboard system because the models required to predict fatigue crack growth during variable-amplitude loading are too complicated. They are too complicated because variable-amplitude fatigue crack growth analysis must be performed on a cycle-by-cycle basis as no closed-form solution exists. This makes these calculations too time-consuming and requires impractical, heavy onboard systems or offsite facilities.;The hypothesis is to replace a variable-amplitude spectrum with an equivalent constant-amplitude spectrum. The advantage is a dramatic reduction in the complexity of the problem so that damage predictions can be made onboard by simple, fast calculations in real-time without the need to add additional weight to the aircraft. The intent is to reduce the computational burden and facilitate on-board projection of damage evolution and prediction for the accurate monitoring and management of aircraft. A spectrum reduction method was proposed and experimentally validated that reduces a variable-amplitude spectrum to a constant-amplitude equivalent.;The reduction from a variable-amplitude (VA) spectrum to a constant-amplitude equivalent (CAE) was proposed as a two-part process. Preliminary spectrum reduction is first performed by elimination of those loading events shown to be too negligible to significantly contribute to fatigue crack growth. This is accomplished by rainflow counting. The next step is to calculate the appropriate, equivalent maximum and minimum loads by means of a root-mean-square average. This reduced spectrum defines the CAE and replaces the original spectrum. The simplified model was experimentally shown to provide the approximately same fatigue crack growth as the original spectrum.;Fatigue crack growth experiments for two dissimilar aircraft spectra across a wide-range of stress-intensity levels validated the proposed spectrum reduction procedure. Irrespective of the initial K-level, the constant-amplitude equivalent spectra were always conservative in crack growth rate, and were so by an average of 50% over the full range tested. This corresponds to a maximum 15% overestimation in driving force Delta K. Given other typical sources of scatter that occur during fatigue crack growth, a consistent 50% conservative prediction on crack growth rate is very satisfying. This is especially attractive given the reduction in cost gained by the simplification.;We now have a seamless system that gives an acceptably good approximation of damage occurring in the aircraft. This contribution is significant because in a very simple way we now have given a path to bypass the current infrastructure and ground-support requirements. The decision-making is now a lot simpler. In managing an entire fleet we now have a workable system where the strength is in no need for a massive, isolated computational center. The fidelity of the model gives credence because experimental data show that the approximate spectrum model captures the essential spectrum response. The discrepancy between the models is such that an experimental parameter is sufficient to converge the models.;The proposed spectrum reduction procedure significantly mitigates the computational burden and allows for the probabilistic assessment of fatigue in real-time. This, in turn, provides support for crack-growth monitoring systems in facilitation of aircraft prognosis and fleet management.