Structural Health Monitoring has been proposed as a solution to address the needs of military aviation to reduce the time and cost to perform nondestructive inspections. While the potential to realize significant benefits exist, there are considerations that have to be addressed before such systems can be integrated into military platforms. Some considerations are pervasive to all aviation, such as how to assess the reliability and reproducible capability of these systems. However, there are other challenges unique to military aviation that must be overcome before these types of systems can be used. This presentation and paper are intended as a complement to the review of the outcome of the SAE G-11 SHM committee special workshop on SHM reliability in April of 2015. It will address challenges unique to military aviation that stem from different approaches to managing structural integrity (i.e. safety), frequency of use, design differences, various maintenance practices, and additional descriptions addressing differences in the execution of inspections. The objective of this presentation is to improve the awareness of the research and development community to the different and unique requirements found in military aviation, including the differences between countries, services, and aircraft type. This information should assist the research and development community in identifying and attacking key challenges. It is not intended to be comprehensive overview of all stakeholders’ perspectives, but to serve as a launch point for additional discussion and exploration of opportunities to realize the potential of Structural Health Monitoring to assist in the management of military aviation assets. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

Topics
Aviation, Aircraft, Outreach, Governing committees, News and events
1.
Colin
 
Bakse
,
Airlift Tanker: History of U.S. Airlift and Tanker Forces
,
Turner Publishing
,
1996
, p.
63
.
Google Scholar
 
2.
MIL STD 1530 RevC
,
Department of Defense Standard Practice: Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP)
,
Nov. 2005
, available at http://everyspec.com/MIL-STD/MIL-STD-1500-1599/MIL-STD-1530C_23416/.
3.
Miedlar
,
P.C.
,
Berens
.
A.P.
,
Gunderson
,
A.
, and
Gallagher
,
J.P.
,
Handbook in Damage Tolerant Design, Section 2.6.3, Probability of Fracture
,
Technical Rpeort Number AFRL-VA-WP-TR-2003-3002
,
November 2002
, available at: http://www.afgrow.net/applications/DTDHandbook/sections/page2_6_3.aspx.
Google Scholar
 
4.
MIL HDBK 1823 RevA
,
Department of Defense Handbook, Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) System Reliability Assessment
,
April, 2009
, available at http://everyspec.com/MIL-HDBK/MIL-HDBK-1800-1999/MIL-HDBK-1823A_33187/.
5.
Jones
,
K.
,
Brausch
,
J.B.
,
Fong
,
W.A.
, and
Harris
,
B.L
, “
Probing the Future: Better F-16 Inspections Suing Conformal Eddy Current Inspection Tools
,” presented at the
2015 Aircraft Airworthiness and Sustainment Conference
,
March 31 – April 2, 2015
.
6.
Lindgren
,
E.A.
,
Brausch
,
J.B.
,
Buynak
,
C.F.
,
Kobryn
,
P.A.
, and
Leonard
,
M. S.
, “
The State of Nondestructive Evaluation and Structural Health Monitoring
,” presented at the
2014 Aircraft Structural Integrity Program Conference
,
December 3 – 5, 2013
.
7.
Hutton
,
P.H.
,
Lemon
,
D.K.
,
Melton
,
R.B.
 and
Doctor
,
P.G.
, “Develop In-flight Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Aircraft to Detect Fatigue Crack Growth,” in
Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation
, eds.
D. O.
 
Thompson
 and
D. E.
 
Chimenti
, (
Plenum Press
,
NY
)
1
,
459
–
462
(
1981
).
Google Scholar
 
8.
Derriso
,
M.M.
, “
Hot Spot Monitoring of Aircraft Structures
,” presented at the
2009 Aircraft Structural Integrity Program Conference
,
December 1 – 3, 2009
.
9.
Roach
,
D.
, and
Piotrowski
,
D.
, “
Validation of a Structural health Monitoring (SHM) System and Integration into an Airline Maintenance Program
,” presented at the
Airlines for America 2014 Nondestructive testing Forum
,
September 23 – 25, 2014
.
10.
Goldfine
,
N.
,
Marx
,
J.
,
Manning
,
B.
,
Root
,
C.
,
Spencer
,
F.
,
Barrett
,
A.
,
Engstrand
,
C.
,
Kulowitch
,
P.
,
Nguyen
,
A.
,
Martin
,
C.
, “
Flight Testing of Permanently Installed Eddy Current Sensors for IVHM
,” presented at the
2014 Aircraft Airworthiness and Sustainment Conference
,
April 14 – 17, 2014
.
11.
Ball
,
D.
,
Burke
,
T.
,
Ingram
,
E.
, and
Lougheed
,
J.
, “
SHM Impact on Structural Risk Assessment for a Large Transport Aircraft
,” presented at the
2011 Aircraft Airworthiness and Sustainment Conference
,
April 9 – 12, 2011
.
12.
Fitzwater
 
L.
, and
Davis
,
C.
, “
Integration of Non-Deterministic Analysis and In-situ Monitoring for Structural Integrity
,” presented at the
2011 Aircraft Airworthiness and Sustainment Conference
,
April 9 – 12, 2011
.
13.
Lindgren
,
E.A.
,
Aldrin
,
J.C.
,
Jata
,
K.
,
Scholes
,
B.
, and
Knopp
,
J.
,
Ultrasonic Plate Waves for Fatigue Crack Detection in Multi-layered Metallic Structures
,
Proceedings of Health monitoring of Structural and Biological Systems
,
SPIE
Vol
6532
,
1
, p
1
,
March 2007
.
Google Scholar
Crossref
Search ADS
 
14.
Chen
,
X.
,
Michaels
,
J.E.
,
Lee
,
S.J.
, and
Michael
,
T.E.
, “
Load-differential imaging for detection and localization of fatigue cracks using Lamb waves
,”
NDT&E International
, Vol.
51
, pp.
142
–
149
,
2012
.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ndteint.2012.05.006
Google Scholar
Crossref
Search ADS
 
15.
Lindgren
,
E.
,
Knopp
,
J.S.
,
Aldrin
,
J.C.
,
Steffes
,
G. J.
, and
Buynak
,
C.F.
, “Aging Aircraft NDE: Capabilities, Challenges, and Opportunities,” in
Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation
, eds.
D. O.
 
Thompson
 and
D. E.
 
Chimenti
, (
American Institute of Physics 894
,
Melville, NY
),
26
,
1731
–
1738
(
2007
).
Google Scholar
 
16.
Chang
,
F.K.
,
Janapati
,
V.
,
Kopsaftopoulis
,
K
,
Lee
,
S.J.
,
Li
,
F.
, and
Lonkar
,
K.
, “
Quantification of Structural Health Monitoring for Damage Detection
,” Presented at the
2014 Aircraft Structural Integrity Program Conference
,
December 2 – 4, 2014
.
17.
Lindgren
,
E.
 and
Stargel
,
D.
, “
USAF Perspective on Foundational Challenges for Enhanced Damage Sensing
,”
Proceedings 6ᵗʰ European Workshop on SHM
, V
1
,
2012
, p
3
.
Google Scholar
Crossref
Search ADS
 
18.
Babish
 
C.A.
 IV, “
Requirements Associated with Transition of ISHM into USAF Aircraft
,” presented at the
Integrated Structural Health Management Conference
,
August 13 – 15, 2009
.
19.
Thompson
,
R.B.
 “
A Unified Approach to the Model-assisted Determination of Probability of Detection
,”
Materials Evaluation
, V
66
, p
667
,
2008
.
Google Scholar
 
20.
Medina
,
E.
, et.al., “
Demonstration of Model-assisted Reliability Assessment Protocol on a Low Frequency Vibration-based Damage Sensing Case
,”
Proceedings 8th International Workshop on SHM
, V
2
,
2011
, p
2460
.
Google Scholar
 
This content is only available via PDF.
2016
U.S. Government