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AFGROW | DTD Handbook

Handbook for Damage Tolerant Design

  • DTDHandbook
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    • Sections
      • 1. Introduction
      • 2. Fundamentals of Damage Tolerance
      • 3. Damage Size Characterizations
      • 4. Residual Strength
      • 5. Analysis Of Damage Growth
      • 6. Examples of Damage Tolerant Analyses
      • 7. Damage Tolerance Testing
      • 8. Force Management and Sustainment Engineering
        • 0. Force Management and Sustainment Engineering
        • 1. Force Structural Management
        • 2. Sustainment Engineering
          • 0. Sustainment Engineering
          • 1. Widespread Fatigue Damage
          • 2. Corrosion
          • 3. Structural Risk Analysis
        • 3. References
      • 9. Structural Repairs
      • 10. Guidelines for Damage Tolerance Design and Fracture Control Planning
      • 11. Summary of Stress Intensity Factor Information
    • Examples

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.