22nd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Harrogate, UK, 28 August - 1st September, 2000
Paper ICAS 2000-6.1.1

TEST PRACTICES FOR NEXT GENERATION AIRCRAFT CABIN SYSTEMS

H. J. Tews et al.
DaimlerChrysler Aerospace Airbus GmbH, Hamburg, Germany

Keywords: aircraft cabin systems, test methods and means, test facilities, system integration tests

Next generation aircraft designs will have to follow general tendencies as in the reduction of development costs and product lead time, as a result of the growing competition between aircraft manufacturers. Also a major goal for aircraft manufactures and operators is reliable and mature aircraft cabin systems at entry into service. To comply with these requests new test practices must be originated in compliance with the developing system technologies, especially for next generation aircraft cabin systems, due to the increasing significance of cabin comfort and passenger entertainment which the aircraft operator will require for their marketing strategy. This paper describes the main contents of the development activities in the area of new test practices for next generation aircraft cabin systems. The new test practices will combine a new generic test system architecture with test methods & means in order to offer an increased test coverage and therefore a higher safety level in a cost and time effective way. A new developed full-scale cabin system integration & verification test facility offers an early demonstration of new cabin systems functionalities and the testability of interactions between system hardware, controller and interfaces to other aircraft systems before assembly of first aircraft.

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