25th Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3 - 8 September 2006, Hamburg, Germany
Paper ICAS 2006-P3.9

ASSESSING THE STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF POAF AIRCRAFT

A. Fonseca, L. Reis, M. Freitas
Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal

Keywords: flight loads monitoring, damage tolerance, structural integrity

This paper describes the present methodology, using experimental flight data collected by instrumentation systems, applied on Portuguese Air Force aircrafts for fatigue life assessment in order to maintain its structural integrity. This methodology is exemplified by the DASSAULT/DORNIER ALPHA-JET application. A Flight Loads Data Recorder prototype is also presented.

view full paper