Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Composite airframes suffer from complex damage modes during operation. Many investigations tend to look into specific aspects of damage mechanisms but seldom take a systematic view. This paper introduces a new fault tree methodology to synthesize various damage modes of composite structures by identifying possible damage causes. Qualitative analysis is performed incorporating structure importance analysis, probability importance analysis and relative probability importance analysis. Quantitative analysis by Monte Carlo simulation is then conducted as a validation to demonstrate the feasibility of the fault tree for composite damages. A number of options addressing main damage causes are proposed to improve the reliability of composite structures. Engineers from airlines and manufacturers can use this method to prioritize the main damage causes in different situations as a failure preventative tool or damage evaluation. Also, this approach can be extended to provide valuable inputs to other advanced methodologies to perform better diagnosis and prognosis for composites.

Keywords

Composite structures fault tree analysis damage modes damage causes importance analysis

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Hale

. Boeing 787 from the ground up. AERO, Boeing Company: Shannon Frew, 2006, pp. 17–20.

Marsh

. Airbus takes on Boeing with composite A350 XWB, USA: Elsevier, 2008.

Matthews

Rawlings

. Composite materials: engineering and science, Florida, USA: CRC Press, 1999, pp. 470–470.

Chen

. Repair guidance for composite structures, Beijing, China: Aviation Industry Press, 2004, pp. 205–205.

Lin

Rusk

. Structural design methodology based on concepts of uncertainty, Seattle, Washington: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics University of Washington, 2000, pp. 130–130.

Bogdanoff

Kozin

. Probabilistic models of cumulative damage, University of Michigan, USA: Wiley-Interscience, 1985.

Lin

Andrey

. Probabilistic approach to damage tolerance design of aircraft composite structures. J Aircraft 2007; 44: 1309–1317.

Kuravsky L and Baranov S. The concept of multifactor markov networks and its application to forecasting and diagnostics of technical systems. In Proceedings of condition monitoring, Cambridge, UK, 18 July 2005, p.111–117. Cambridge, UK: Kings College.

Andrews JD and Clifton AE II. Fault tree and markov analysis applied to various design complexities. In Proceedings of the 18th international system safety conference, Texas, USA, 11--16 September 2000.

10.

Verma

Ajit

Karanki

. Reliability and safety engineering, New York, USA: Springer, 2010, pp. 55–56.

11.

Kladis

Economou

Tsourdos

. Fault diagnosis with matrix analysis for electrically actuated unmanned aerial vehicles. Proc IMechE, Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 2009; 223: 543–563.

12.

Marzat

Piet-Lahanier

Damongeot

. Control-based fault detection and isolation for autonomous aircraft. Proc IMechE, Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 2011; 226: 510–531.

13.

Vesely

. Analysis of fault trees by kinetic tree theory, USA: Idaho Nuclear Corporation, 1969.

14.

Fussell

. Synthetic tree model – a formal methodology for fault tree construction, USA: Nuclear Science and Engineering, 1973.

15.

Hurdle

Bartlett

Andrews

. System fault diagnostics using fault tree analysis. Proc IMechE, Part O: J Risk Reliability 2007; 221: 43–55.

16.

Dunnett

Andrews

. Analysis methods for fault trees that contain secondary failures. Proc IMechE, Part E: J Process Mechanical Engineering 2004; 218: 93–102.

17.

Masters

Yeow

Louthan

Jr . A qualitive fault tree analysis for the tensile failure of fibrous laminated composites. Composites 1977; 8: 111–117.

18.

Pan

Huang

Jiang

. Fault tree analysis of corrosion failure for aircraft structures and improvements. J Beijing Univ Aeronaut Astronaut 2010; 36: 299–302.

19.

Sirivedin

Fenner

Nath

. Matrix crack propagation criteria for model short-carbon fibre/epoxy composites. Compos Sci Technol 2000; 60: 2835–2847.

20.

ATA MSG-3. Operator/manufacturer scheduled maintenance development, Washington, DC: ATA, 2009, pp. 50–55.

21.

Chryssanthopoulos

Giavotto

Poggi

. Characterization of manufacturing effects for buckling-sensitive composite cylinders. Compos Manufact 1995; 6: 93–101.

22.

Stig

Hallström

. A modelling framework for composites containing 3D reinforcement. Compos Struct 2012; 94: 2895–2901.

23.

Vesely

Goldberg

Roberts

. Fault tree handbook, Washington, DC: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1981.

24.

Stamatelatos

Vesely

. Fault tree handbook with aerospace applications, Washington, DC: NASA Publication, 2002.

25.

Zeng

Zhao

Zhang

. Design and analysis of system reliability, Beijing: Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Press, 2001.

26.

Collet

. Some remarks on rare-event approximation. Microelectron Reliability 1997; 37: 687–687.

27.

Demichela

Piccinini

Ciarambino

. On the numerical solution of fault trees. Reliability Eng Syst Saf 2003; 82: 141–147.

28.

Dong

. Estimation of failure probability of oil and gas transmission pipelines by fuzzy fault tree analysis. J Loss Prevent Proc Ind 2005; 18: 83–88.

29.

OpenFTA. User manual, Wales, UK: Formal Software Construction Ltd, 2005, pp. 82–83.

30.

Dixit

Joshi

Davim

. Incorporation of material behavior in modeling of metal forming and machining processes: A review. Mater Des 2011; 32: 3655–3670.

Fault tree analysis for composite structural damages

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References