Structural Health Management of Damaged Aircraft Structures Using Digital Twin Concept

Abstract

The development of multidisciplinary integrated Structural Health Management (SHM) tools will enable accurate detection, and prognosis of damaged aircraft under normal and adverse conditions during flight. As part of the digital twin concept, methodologies are developed by using integrated multiphysics models, sensor information and input data from an in-service vehicle to mirror and predict the life of its corresponding physical twin. SHM tools are necessary for both damage diagnostics and prognostics for continued safe operation of damaged aircraft structures. The adverse conditions include loss of control caused by environmental factors, actuator and sensor faults or failures, and structural damage conditions. A major concern in these structures is the growth of undetected damage/cracks due to fatigue and low velocity foreign object impact that can reach a critical size during flight, resulting in loss of control of the aircraft. To avoid unstable, catastrophic propagation of damage during a flight, load levels must be maintained that are below a reduced load-carrying capacity for continued safe operation of an aircraft. Hence, a capability is needed for accurate real-time predictions of damage size and safe load carrying capacity for structures with complex damage configurations. In the present work, a procedure is developed that uses guided wave responses to interrogate damage. As the guided wave interacts with damage, the signal attenuates in some directions and reflects in others. This results in a difference in signal magnitude as well as phase shifts between signal responses for damaged and undamaged structures. Accurate estimation of damage size, location, and orientation is made by evaluating the cumulative signal responses at various pre-selected sensor locations using a genetic algorithm (GA) based optimization procedure. The damage size, location, and orientation is obtained by minimizing the difference between the reference responses and the responses obtained by wave propagation finite element analysis of different representative cracks, geometries, and sizes.

A Survey on Digital Twin: Definitions, Characteristics, Applications, and Design Implications

“…Based on a similar idea, the work reported in [82] combined developments in modeling of fatigue-damage, isogeometric analysis of thin-shell structures [109], and structural health monitoring [110], to develop a computational steering framework for fatiguedamage prediction in full-scale laminated composite structures, and successfully tested it on wind-turbine blades. To perform real-time prediction of damage, some stateof-the-art aircraft DTs analyze the responses of a guided wave [83]. As the guided wave interacts with damage, the signal attenuates in some directions and reflects in others.…”

Digital Twins: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions for Modeling and Simulation in Engineering Dynamics Applications

“…In terms of asset management, digital twins have been considered for tasks such as damage detection and structuralhealth/condition monitoring [10,28,41] and uncertainty quantification [42]. In addition to the application areas already mentioned, digital twins have also been considered for application in the areas of offshore drilling [43], offshore wind turbines [44,45], space structures [46] and nuclear fusion [47].…”

The Proposal and Research on the Most Basic Problem of Fault Diagnosis

“…Assembly, as the last guarantee link of precision control in product development process, usually takes up 45% of the average workload in actual production process [14].Moreover, the assembly process incorporates the errors of the machining process under the requirement of tolerance matching to realize the design idea.Since 2017, the research of digital twin in virtual reality, as the most representative new technology of improving assembly accuracy, has shown explosive growth.GRIEVE et al [15] proposed that the essence of digital twinning is to embed digital information into the physical system itself and to link information to the physical system throughout the life cycle of the system, which can alleviate unpredictable situations in complex systems.SOEDERBERG et al [16] discussed how to use digital twin method to guarantee physical geometric dimensions of products in real time from design, pre-production process to production process.MORRIS, etc. [17] From the perspective of product development ecosystem, it is divided into three dimensions: product design, production manufacturing and business, through the organic combination of three types of digital twins.In the construction of twin model, finite element model, exchange data model between heterogeneous systems [18], architecture reference model [19] and product development precision virtual model [20], multi-physical field model [21] and full-parameter virtual model [22] which are suitable for accurate reproducing of product physical and performance characteristics have been applied in the modeling using digital twin method and how future models will advance in the field of digital twin.One step of application exploration.ZhuangCunbo et al [23] reviewed the background of digital twin, elaborated its technical connotation, and provided the implementation ways of digital twin in product design, manufacturing and service stages.According to the basic data acquisition layer to the top application layer, Liu in the docking assembly of large components from two perspectives of manufacturing and coordination accuracy, which improved the coordination quality.Zhu Yongguo et al [33] established an explicit functional relationship between positioner manufacturing error and body position and attitude error by using differential transformation, and used indirect adjustment method and weighted least square method to couple calculation of multi-positioner dynamic error and its compensation quantity, thus ensuring the accuracy of docking coordination.In the actual processing and assembly process, although a large number of digital detection equipment is used, the precise control and adjustment of geometry is realized.…”