27th Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 19 - 24 September 2010, Nice, France
Paper ICAS 2010-1.9.3 INVITED

INVESTIGATION OF A HEALTH MONITORING METHODOLOGY FOR FUTURE NATURAL LAMINAR FLOW TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT

D. Mavris, W. S. Saric*, H. Ran, M. J. Belisle*, M. J. Woodruff*, H. L. Reed*
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA; *Texas A&M Univ., USA

Keywords: natural laminar flow, health monitoring, transport aircraft

The health of Natural Laminar Flow aircraft is defined and the functions and contributors of an associated Health Monitoring System are discussed. A methodology is proposed which encompasses four modules: ‘monitoring’, ‘detection’, ‘diagnosis’ and ‘recommendation’. For the monitoring module, a Flow Field Based Method (FFBM) and an Aircraft Performance Based Method (APBM) are proposed. Sensors to be used for an FFBM are investigated and selected. Possible sensor arrangements are briefly discussed. The performance distance concept for an APBM is proposed. For the detection module, a Kalman Filter based method is proposed using existing sensors on-board current-generation transport aircraft. Thoughts about future development and implementation of the ‘diagnosis’ and ‘recommendation’ modules are discussed.

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