An Integrated Health Management and Prognostic Technology for Composite Airframe Structures

Next generation technology of integrated health management systems for air-transportation structures will combine different single SHM methods to an overall system with multiple abilities considering different stages of damage initiation and propagation. The fundamental configuration of the proposed SHM technique will involve the idea of an integrated passive/active monitoring and diagnostic system extended by numerical modules for lifetime prediction. The overall system is capable of providing real-time load monitoring and damage estimation on a global structure level as well as precise damage diagnostics on a local level. This robust diagnostic technique provides quantifiable damage location and size estimation that account for the uncertainties induced by the environments or the system itself continuously during flight. Additionally, efficient prediction and prognostic methods are integrated with monitoring and diagnostic outputs to provide real time estimation of possible damage scenarios, residual strength, and remaining useful life of the damaged structure. From this result information is gained which allow appropriate preventative actions on the monitored structure. To achieve those objectives, a built-in sensor/actuator network is employed and numerical simulation methods of damage estimation and propagation are developed and applied. The goal of this work is to integrate all these single techniques and subsystems into an integrated structural health management system for composite airframe structures. The system design, data exchange between the different subsystems, and the performance of each module is presented. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.