• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.516-522
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• 2015

Aging aircraft structures are inevitably exposed to environment for a long time facing many potential problems, including corrosion and wide spread fatigue damage, which in turn cause the degradation of flight safety. In this study, the environmental surface damages on aging aircraft structures induced during service were quantitatively analyzed. Additionally, S-N fatigue tests were performed with center hole specimens extracted from aging aircraft structures. From the results of quantitative analyses of the surface damages and fatigue tests, it is concluded that corrosion pits initiated during service reduce the fatigue life significantly. Finally, using the fracture mechanics and the EIFS (equivalent initial flaw size) concepts, the remaining fatigue life was predicted based on actual fatigue test results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.167-172
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• 2002

During the operation of military aircraft, maintenance is divided into organizational, intermediate and depot maintenance. In the depot maintenance, after removal of major parts and removable doors, damage assessment is performed. Locating damage, charactering the damage and determining its extent, zoning the damage on the part being repaired and re-evaluation of the damaged area after damage removal. Repair joints are classified by bonded joints and bolted joints, depending on joining material. In this paper, repair method in aging aircraft is investigated and the possibility of application of copmposite patch is surveyed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.116-121
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• 2018

According to the incresement of aging aircraft, Republic of Korea Air Force (RoKAF) conducted a teardown inspection of aircraft's EWIS (electrical wiring interconnection system) to determine the status of deterioration and the influence of failure occurrences due to it. The inspected aircraft were the retired fighter jets that had been used for more than 40 years. By analyzing defect type and the defect tendency, RoKAF can establish the necessary measures for the usage extension of their fleet and furthermore, the analysis results can be used as a basic data for the preparation of it's aircraft aging. EWIS inspection was done throughout careful visual inspection technique by removing all the ducts and pipes located in the fuselage and wings. For the aircraft wiring where no damage was found, the elongation tests were performed to determine the deterioration of wiring according to the location of the aircraft. The connectors, which is the main cause of intermittent failure, were completely disassembled and inspected for internal damage such as corrosion, abrasion, and traces of foreign objects. The detected defects were classified into 4 severity levels based on the type of damage, and the classified defects were weighted according to the criticality which may affects to it's system to establish the action plan.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.65-71
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• 2019

In this study, as a part of the aging aircraft performance improvement project for which no design information is provided, a new type of blade antenna is installed on the main part of the aging aircraft, and the method of proving the fatigue life of the main part of the aircraft is reviewed and summarized. There are various methods to prove fatigue life according to the manufacturer and aircraft design conditions. The fatigue life prediction and damage tolerance range of the relevant site were obtained through related regulations and industry examples. From these results, the fatigue life of newly installed antennas around the main parts of the aging aircraft was evaluated and the maintenance period and criteria were set according to the damage tolerance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.591-602
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• 2009

The Compton backscatter technique has been applied to lap-joint in aircraft structure in order to determine mass loss due to exfoliative corrosion of the aluminum alloy sheet skin. The mass loss of each layer has been estimated from Compton backscatter A-scan including the aluminum sheet, the corrosion layer, and the sealant. A Compton backscattering imaging system has been also developed to obtain a cross-sectional profile of corroded lap-splices of aging aircraft using a specially designed slit-type camera. The camera is to focus on a small scattering volume inside the material from which the backscattered photons are collected by a collimated scintillator detector for interpretation of material characteristics. The cross section of the layered structure is scanned by moving the scattering volume through the thickness direction of the specimen. The theoretical model of the Compton scattering based on Boltzmann transport theory is presented for quantitative characterization of exfoliative corrosion through deconvolution procedure using a nonlinear least-square error minimization method. It produces practical information such as location and width of planar corrosion in layered structures of aircraft, which generally cannot be detected by conventional NDE techniques such as the ultrasonic method.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.417-426
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• 2006

A Digital X-ray imaging system using Compton backscattering has been developed to obtain a cross-sectional profile and mass loss of corroded lap-splices of aging aircraft from density variation. A slit-type camera was designed to focus on a small scattering volume inside the material, from which the backscattered photons are collected by a collimated scintillator detector for interpretation of material characteristics. The cross section of the lap-joint is scanned by moving the scattering volume through the thickness direction of the specimen. The mass loss of each layer has been estimated from a Compton backscatter A-scan to obtain the thickness of each layer including the aluminum sheet, the corrosion layer and the sealant. Quantitative information such as location and width of planar corrosion in the lap splices of fuselages is obtained by deconvolution using a nonlinear least-square error minimization method(BFGS method): A simple reconstruction model is also introduced to overcome distortion of the Compton backscatter data due to attenuation effects attributed to beam hardening and quantum noise.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.29-50
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• 2004

A total life model was developed to assess the service life of aging aircraft. The primary focus of this paper is the development of crack growth life projection using the response surface method. Crack growth life projection is a necessary component of the total life model. The study showed that the number of load cycles N needed for a crack to propagate to a specified size can be linearly related to the geometric parameter, material, and stress level of the component considered when all the variables are transformed to logarithmic values. By the Central Limit theorem, the ln N was approximated by Gaussian distribution. This Gaussian model compared well with the histograms of the number of load cycles generated from simulated crack growth curves. The outcome of this study will aid engineers in designing their crack growth experiments to develop the stochastic crack growth models for service life assessments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.212-224
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• 2010

The usefulness of the magnetic camera for non-destructive testing of aging aircraft is discussed in this paper. The magnetic camera can be used f magnetic particle testing(MT), magnetic flux leakage testing(MFLT), eddy current testing(ECT) and penetration testing(PT). It measures the distribution of a magnetic field and visualizes the magnetic pattern. Near and far side cracks, fatigue, thickness degradation, and cracks under rivets have been detected. The possibility of quantitative evaluation was also examined. Using indirect experiments, we verified the detection ability of the sensor for cracks in titanium and advanced composite materials.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.805-811
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• 2011

Aircraft MLG and wing structures have been recognized as fatigue critical structures and exposed to the risk of fatigue crack initiation and propagation. Furthermore, these structures are frequently subjected to serious dynamic loading condition during a Hard Landing which may lead to their failure. Especially, structural integrity of MLG and wing components is decreased as the flight time increased because of the fatigue damage accumulated on the aircraft. In this study, the effects of Hard Landing on the MLG and wing components of aging aircraft were evaluated by using numerical approach. To achieve the aim, a finite element model has been developed and simulations were conducted by varying the landing conditions. As a result, it was revealed that the high stress concentration phenomenon was occurred at the lower Side Brace of MLG. Thereby, the intensified inspection for the lower Side Brace should be considered to prevent unexpected aircraft mishap.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.135-146
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• 2010

This paper presents the perspective of the Structural Mechanics program of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) on the damage assessment of structures for the period 2006-2009 when the author was serving as Program Manager at AFOSR. It is found that damage assessment of structures plays a very important role in assuring the safety and operational readiness of US Air Force fleet. The current fleet has many aging aircraft, which poses a considerable challenge for the operators and maintainers. The nondestructive evaluation technology is rather mature and able to detect damage with considerable reliability during the periodic maintenance inspections. The emerging structural health monitoring methodology has great potential, because it will use on-board damage detection sensors and systems, will be able to offer on-demand structural health bulletins. Considerable fundamental and applied research is still needed to enable the development, implementation, and dissemination of structural health monitoring technology.