Developments with the F/A-18 FINAL Centre Barrel Test Program
At the AIAC two years ago, a paper was presented entitled “The F/A-18 FINAL Fatigue Testing Program, by Molent et al. 1. It discussed the history of the Flaw IdeNtification through the Application of Loads (FINAL) program, the operating aspects of the program, the lifing methodology for F/A-18 Hornet centre barrel (CB) structures, and how the interpretation of the test results was used to extend the safe life of several critical structural locations in the CB. Two years on, and the FINAL program still continues with more RAAF CBs becoming available for test and teardown. These RAAF CBs have provided valuable service history data that has been used in conjunction with DSTO’s novel lead crack concept framework, to extend the safe life of other critical areas in the CB. The end result of these continued investigations has been further financial savings and maintenance schedule relief for the F/A-18A/B structural upgrade program. In addition to the crack growth data generated from the FINAL program, some of the CBs are being used as concept demonstrators for fleet modifications. This paper presents a broad overview of the above, and other related activities that have occurred as part of the FINAL program over the past two years.
FINAL F/A-18 Centre Barrel Fatigue Testing Crack Growth Safe Life Extension Y488 bulkhead Lead Crack Concept.
Geoff Swanton Leigh Robertson
Air Vehicles Division, Platforms Sciences Laboratory, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, P QinetiQ AeroStructures, Level 3, 210 Kingsway, South Melbourne, Victoria, 3205,Australia
国际会议
2011年亚太航空航天技术学术会议(APISAT 2011)
澳大利亚
英文
1-23
2011-02-28（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）