Cost/Benefit Analysis for Intergration of Non-Deterministic Analysis and In-Situ Monitoring for Structural Integrity

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for assessing the costs and benefits of implementing Condition Based Maintenance for damage tolerant aircraft structure through an integrated methodology of risk assessment and monitoring at varying levels of fidelity for maintaining structural integrity. Traditional scheduled maintenance practices vary from strictly scheduled maintenance defined during design to scheduled maintenance revised based on recorded actual usage and aggregated across a fleet of aircraft. The approach considered here, an integrated structural risk assessment, with an investment in in-situ monitoring, is applied to a specific critical location on the F-15 fighter and the return on the investment over the projected remaining life of the aircraft is assessed. The capabilities of the monitoring system and their investment costs are considered to achieve an acceptable positive return.