Structural Health Monitoring, In-service Experience, Benefit and Way Ahead

The structural health monitoring (SHM) is an important requirement to handle military aircraft safety. In contrast with civil aircraft, the missions, configurations and environments are changing frequently and therefore also the load spectra, which lead to a various life consumption. To ensure the structural integrity of the airframe and structural systems by SHM systems the following four functions are essential: Event and fatigue monitoring, including remaining life assessment and damage detection monitoring. This is the basis for an economic and safety in-service operation of a flying weapon system.

This article shows the way from a simple monitoring system to a state-of-the-art support system based on examples from the German Air Force (GAF). From a military aircraft manufacturer’s point of view, the pro and contra of these systems based on in-service experience of various aircraft types are listed. Referring to this experience the benefit of the modernization of SHM-System will be presented and the requirements on a modern SHM-System especially for the ground support system and the logistic and in addition for new monitoring areas will be worked out. The approach for hot spot monitoring for damage detection is explained. A special view will be given on the possible integration of modern damage detection methods in existing and new SHM-Systems. Furthermore the combination of damage detection system and existing usage monitoring systems opens the way for enhanced monitoring systems.