Structural Integrity of Aging Airplanes

The emergence of civil aviation as a means of mass transportation is primarily due to the large scale construction of jet airplanes in the past 30 years or so. A large number of these jet airplanes is currently operating at or beyond their designed fatigue lives. Thus, the structural integrity of these aging airplanes has become an issue of major concern to all nations of the world. To bring the needed technical and research focus on the issues involved in the life-enhancement and safety-assurance of aging airplanes, the Federal Aviation Administration sponsored a symposium in Atlanta, GA, USA, during 20-22 March 1990. This symposium, under the title "International Symposium on Structural Integrity of Aging Airplanes· was organized jointly be the Georgia Institute of Technology (Center for Computational Mechanics) and the Transportation Systems Center (Cambridge, MA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Industrial and academic experts from several countries in North America, Europe and Asia, were invited to discuss their experiences and proposed solutions. This monograph contains the original papers that represent the expanded and edited versions of the talks presented at this symposium. This book aims to bring the collective experience, from across the world, with problems related to the structural integrity of aging airplanes to the attention of the professional and research community at large - in the hope that it may stimulate further fruitful research on this important topic of global concern.

Inhalt

1. Towards Quantitative Non-Destructive Evaluation of Aging Aircraft.- 2. Computational Schemes for Integrity Analyses of Fuselage Panels in Aging Airplanes.- 3. Risk Analysis for Aging Aircraft Fleets.- 4. Aspects of Aging Aircraft: A TransAtlantic View.- 5. The Civil Damage Tolerance Requirements in Theory and Practice.- 6. The Effect of Exfoliation Corrosion on the Fatigue Behavior of Structural Aluminum Alloys.- 7. A Damage Tolerance Approach for Management of Aging Gas Turbine Engines.- 8. An Evaluation of the Pressure Proof Test Concept for 2024-T3 Aluminum Alloy Sheet.- 9. Aging Jet Transport Structural Evaluation Programs.- 10. NASA Airframe Structural Integrity Program.- 11. The Aloha Airlines Accident A New Era for Aging Aircraft.- 12. Fuselage Longitudinal Splice Design.- 13. Representation and Probability Issues in the Simulation of Multi-Site Damage.- 14. Bonded Repair of Multi-Site Damage.- 15. Applications of Advanced Fracture Mechanics to Fuselage.- 16. Axial Crack Propagation and Arrest in Pressurized Fuselage.- 17. Structural Integrity of Aging Airplanes: A Perspective.- 18. A Laboratory Study of Fracture in the Presence of Lap Splice Multiple Site Damage.- 19. How Likely is Multiple Site Damage?.- 20. Fractographic Analysis of Initiation and Growth of Fatigue Cracks at Rivet Holes.- 21. Results of Review of Fokker F28 Fellowship Maintenance Program.- 22. Test Facility for Evaluation of Structural Integrity of Stiffened & Jointed Aircraft Curved Panels.- 23. Estimation of Requirements of Inspection Intervals for Panels Susceptible to Multiple Site Damage.- 24. Evaluation Methodologies Applied for Pressurized Fuselages of Airbus A/C.- 25. Experience in Specifying/Prolonging the Airframe Time Limits.- 26. Optical Methods of Stress AnalysisApplied to Cracked Components.- 27. Repairs to Damage Tolerant Aircraft.- 28. Case Study and Simulation of Fatigue Damages and DTE of Aging Aircraft A Review of Researches in Japan.