Section 8.2.0. Sustainment Engineering
A fleet of aircraft is
considered to be aging when the FSMP must be modified due to: a) widespread
fatigue damage, b) corrosion, c), repairs, or d) use beyond original life
goals. Sustainment is the process by
which the individual aircraft of an aging fleet are maintained in an airworthy
state. Since both the actual
maintenance actions and the analyses needed to plan the maintenance actions
constitute sustainment, damage tolerance analyses will play a key role in
scheduling the structural integrity related maintenance.
Currently, there are three structures related sustainment
issues: widespread fatigue damage, corrosion, and repairs. The damage tolerance issues associated with
repairs are discussed in Section 9. The
following subsections briefly address widespread fatigue damage and
corrosion. Research for methods for
incorporating WFD and corrosion in the damage tolerance based FSMP is
ongoing. Because of its role in
assessing widespread fatigue and corrosion damage, a subsection (8.2.3) is also
presented on structural risk analysis.