SBIR-STTR Award

Fatigue life expenditure determinations under the safe program do not account for flight variations for different missions, or employ state-of-the-art sequence-accountable fatigue analyses. The proposed program will investigate the feasibility of utilizing the flight purpose code data to develop correlations between flight purpose codes, gross weights, and flight maneuvers spectra; and establish actual loading histories. Correlations will be established utilizing routinely documented data from counting accelerometer records, 3m flight records (yellow sheet), aircraft/squadron log book records and from fleet flight load survey data. Substantiation of the validity of derived correlations will be demonstrated for a selected tactical aircraft.

Phase I has successfully demonstrated the Flight Purpose Code (FPC) information can be correlated with other limited usage data to determine the sequence-accountable spectrum of structural loadings for the sample airplane. The proposed program will extend the Phase I effort to develop and include the FPC technology into the program with associated software for the FLE calculations of the aircraft selected by NAVAIR. This program will be directly applicable for introduction into the Structural Appraisal of Fatigue Effects (SAFE) program. The completed program can be incorporated into the SAFE program update as preliminary to installation of the Structural Fatigue Data System (SFDS).