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Boeing Technical Journal Forty Years of Structural Durability and Damage Tolerance at Boeing Commercial Airplanes Steven A. Chisholm, Antonio C. Rufin, Brandon D. Chapman and Quentin J. Benson Abstract – As The Boeing Company enters its second century since become the subject of major regulatory actions and in commercial aviation, this paper reviews the progress made significant industry focus. over the past forty years in the development and application of During these years, technology has evolved. Although the durability and damage tolerance methods across its commercial basic analysis principles employed today are not airplane product line, and ventures forward to look at future substantively different from the methods described in Ref. [1 challenges and opportunities. The company’s pioneering efforts, which saw significant advances in the 1970’s and 1980’s – 5], the tools and processes used have been refined over with the development of comprehensive internal technology these past 20 years, extended to broader applications, standards have been evolving, driven by shifts in the regulatory seeking more efficient use of engineering resources, greater and competitive environments and significant technological accuracy, and incorporating service experience acquired developments. Successes are evident in terms of significant from an ever-expanding fleet. In that time, durability and safety improvements and considerable reductions in service damage tolerance (DaDT), moreover, have had to keep pace actions on airplanes designed since that time. Managing an with major developments in materials and manufacturing aging fleet and the adoption of new regulations affecting processes. Composites, for example, saw their first primary maintenance planning have been, and remain some of the structure application at Boeing in the early 1990’s on the 777 greatest challenges. New materials (composite and metallic) and assembly methods, and the ever-constant quest for empennage. Today, they are used on the new Boeing 787 productivity gains in the factory and in design and analysis and 777X in areas of the airframe that previously were the processes are all further shaping the way durability and exclusive domain of metals. damage tolerance are being assessed and implemented. The most important outcome from the early developments and their evolution in the more recent past is the unprecedented, steady advance in commercial aviation safety I. INTRODUCTION that has been achieved since the advent of commercial jet transports in the 1950’s, despite a significant growth in the In his 1993 International Committee on Aeronautical size of the worldwide fleet (Fig. 1). Although the number of Fatigue and Structural Integrity (ICAF) Plantema Memorial hull loss accidents associated with structural issues in these Award lecture [1], Dr. Ulf Goranson described damage statistics comprises only a small percentage of the totals tolerance (and indirectly, durability) as the result of an depicted in Fig. 1, design for DaDT has certainly been a evolutionary process built on decades of experience and fundamental contributor to this remarkable safety record. lessons learned, made possible only through diligent Progress in commercial aviation safety has always been attention to detail design, manufacturing, and maintenance entwined with the evolution of design requirements that are and inspection procedures. The lecture touched on basic mandated by the regulatory agencies (Fig. 2). The aspects of the damage tolerance philosophy in its application introduction of fail-safe design on the Boeing 707, design at The Boeing Company, and almost presciently, on the and testing for durability starting with the model 727, and many challenges that the industry was beginning to face, incorporation of DaDT methods and more active corrosion particularly as it addressed widespread fatigue damage prevention and control measures starting with the 757 and (WFD) and the application of damage tolerance to major 767 airplanes, have all played a role in bringing about a structural repairs and alterations. Both of these topics have significantly safer and more durable and therefore economically viable fleet. Copyright ©2016 Boeing. All rights reserved. BOEING TECHNICAL JOURNAL Fig. 1 – Annual hull loss accident totals and rates for the worldwide commercial jet fleet [6]. In another major accomplishment, and supporting these developments, Boeing has created industry-leading technology methods and standards that provide a Boeing II. THE BOEING DURABILITY METHOD commercial airplane product-wide uniform approach to design and analysis for fatigue, damage tolerance and Initially developed in the early 1970’s and first corrosion prevention and control (Fig. 3). The standards implemented with the 757 and 767 models, the Boeing durability analysis standard, commonly referred to as “Book capture lessons learned and are periodically updated to 2”, along with its design companion, “Book 1”, were first incorporate new methods and to gather in further testing and introduced with the overall objective of assuring a fleet experience, which can then be adopted in new designs competitive economic life for the structure. This goal was or as design improvements. Furthermore, since their inception, these standards have been built for ease of use specifically defined as an absence of significant fatigue both in terms of prerequisite analysis skills and tools, and cracking in the first 20 years of service (defined as a probability of cracking of less than 1 percent with 95 percent reliance on a manageable number of variables. This paper confidence) and at least 30 years of service before fatigue reviews the origins and evolution of durability and damage related maintenance begins to measurably escalate (defined tolerance of commercial airplane structures, focusing on as a nominal probability of cracking of 5 percent with 95 basic principles and their current application at Boeing, and their validation. Recent developments on composite damage percent confidence), meaning that the airframe truly remains tolerance are discussed next. The paper concludes with a economically viable for a minimum of 30 years. This objective, and the means to attain it, has since been validated discussion of new technologies and challenges, and how they by 737 Next Generation (NG) / 757 / 767 / 777 / 787 full- are being addressed. scale fatigue test performance and by direct comparisons of service data with earlier airplane experience. In more recent times, the method has been effectively extended from its original economic life focus to also support damage tolerance threshold calculations and WFD analyses. A. Durability method fundamentals For metallic structure, the Book 2 method at its core balances a structural capability – characterized by the Detail Fatigue Rating (DFR) – against a set of requirements (stresses, minimum design service objective) to arrive at a Fatigue Margin analogous to a static strength Margin of Safety, in that it is likewise defined by a ratio of stresses or a ratio of parameters in units of stress (Fig. 4). Statistical factors are used to attain prescribed reliability levels for each component [1 – 3]. Fig. 2 – Evolution of design requirements for commercial transports, and some of the events that shaped them. 2 Boeing Technical Journal The requirements aspect (lower branch in the Fig. 4 diagram) of the analysis begins with the definition of design service objectives based on a range of anticipated airplane operational usage rates. Loads are structured as standard mission profile segments, covering all applicable conditions encountered in a typical flight. The method can accommodate conditions represented by step, constant-amplitude (discrete-cycle), and spectrum loading. The latter rely on standard exceedance curves substantiated by flight test or other operational data. Variable-amplitude profiles are rendered as equivalent once- per-flight constant-amplitude “GAG” (ground-air-ground) loads or stresses, the relationship between flights and the GAG cycle being handled by a proportionality constant Fig. 3 – Evolution timeline and resources required for termed “GAG Damage Ratio.” The GAG Damage Ratio is Boeing structural DaDT technology standards. determined by a complex procedure combining cycle counting and Palmgren-Miner’s Rule over large numbers of DFR is a component-level fatigue quality index expressed flights to arrive at a cumulative fatigue damage that is then in units of stress. With a set of standardized stress-life (S-N) compared to the GAG cycle damage. This enables curves, it can be used to determine 95 percent reliability, 95 transforming design service objectives, which are expressed percent confidence fatigue lives at any given stress or in numbers of flights into equivalent constant-amplitude allowable fatigue stresses for a particular target reliable life. GAG cycles that can then be used in conjunction with DFR values can be applied to a wide range of structural constant-amplitude S-N curves to calculate stress-based features, from the simplest of stress concentrations to fatigue margins for any given structural component. The complex joints. For joints, the method can capture load entire process can be accomplished seamlessly using transfer effects, material, surface finish, hole fill, hole specialized software. treatments such as coldworking, and clamp-up. DFR values are determined based on combinations of empirical data and B. A legacy of durability analysis. They can be drawn