Executive Summary : | The goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate a system for aircraft load and usage monitoring. Such a system is needed to (i) accurately and reliably assess the current state of structural integrity, (ii) offer a diagnosis of underlying damages or defects, and (iii) make a prognosis on the remaining useful life of the structure. This leads to “condition-based maintenance” philosophies that reduce the operational cost and increase aircraft utilization, leading to substantial economic benefits and strategic advantages. This project proposes to address the above need by developing and/or integrating the key elements of such a system, installing it on an aircraft component such as the wing, and subsequently on the aircraft with the goal of demonstrating the efficacy and certifiability of this system on the ground and through limited flight trials. The flight trials would be carried out subject to the approval of DGCA. The flight vehicle proposed is the Hansa aircraft which is available and operational at the Flight Laboratory, IIT Kanpur. The key sensing elements proposed here are fibre Bragg grating sensors. The choice of sensor locations will be determined based on sensitivity, accessibility and other engineering factors. The method of integrating the sensors with the structure will be developed to ensure adequate ruggedness and reliability under realistic flying conditions. This would be one of the key contributions of this project wherein investigators could offer potential users of this technology a scheme to achieve long-term operational reliability of the sensor network. This sensor network will then be integrated with a sensor interrogation system which includes data acquisition and storage capabilities. The inverse problem of obtaining operational loads using structural strains will be tackled using techniques and algorithms based on suitable analytical and/or data-driven methods. Such information about aircraft loads will be useful in assessing aircraft life. |