Cusati Vincenzo, Corcione Salvatore, Memmolo Vittorio
Design of Aircraft and Flight Technologies Research Group, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80125 Naples, Italy.
Aerospace Structures and Materials Laboratory, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80125 Naples, Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Oct 19;21(20):6938. doi: 10.3390/s21206938.
Structural health monitoring is recognized as a viable solution to increase aviation safety and decrease operating costs enabling a novel maintenance approach based on the actual condition of the airframe, mitigating operating costs induced by scheduled inspections. However, the net benefit is hardly demonstrated, and it is still unclear how the implementation of such an autonomic system can affect performance at aircraft level. To close this gap, this paper presents a systematic analysis where the impact of cost and weight of integrating permanently attached sensors-used for diagnostics- affect the main performance of the aircraft. Through a multidisciplinary aircraft analysis framework, the increment of aircraft operating empty weight is compared with the possible benefits in terms of direct operating costs to identify a breakeven point. Furthermore, the analysis allows to establish a design guideline for structural health monitoring systems returning a safer aircraft without any economic penalties. The results show that the operating costs are lower than those of the reference aircraft up to 4% increase in maximum take-off weight. Paper findings suggest to considering a condition monitoring strategy from the conceptual design stage, since it could maximize the impact of such innovative technology. However, it involves in a design of a brand-new aircraft instead of a modification of an existing one.
结构健康监测被认为是一种可行的解决方案，可提高航空安全性并降低运营成本，从而基于机身的实际状况实现一种全新的维护方法，减轻定期检查带来的运营成本。然而，净效益很难得到证明，而且这种自主系统的实施如何影响飞机层面的性能仍不明确。为了弥补这一差距，本文进行了系统分析，其中用于诊断的永久附着传感器的集成成本和重量影响对飞机的主要性能。通过多学科飞机分析框架，将飞机运营空重的增加与直接运营成本方面的可能收益进行比较，以确定盈亏平衡点。此外，该分析允许为结构健康监测系统建立设计指南，从而在不产生任何经济处罚的情况下使飞机更安全。结果表明，在最大起飞重量增加4%之前，运营成本低于参考飞机。本文的研究结果建议从概念设计阶段就考虑状态监测策略，因为这可以使这种创新技术的影响最大化。然而，这涉及到设计全新的飞机，而不是对现有飞机进行改装。
