Many non-NASA commercial markets exist that can realize significant benefits from this new technology for highly integrated/synergistic structures in the aerospace, automobile, and infrastructure industries. Commercial aviation will benefit significantly from this technology. For example, wide spread area fatigue damage has been determined to be a major source of problem for commercial aviation. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Regulations require that aircraft structures critical to their safe operation must not fail during flight due to damage caused by the repeated (cyclic) loads typical to its operations. This requirement generates the need for evaluating the fatigue life of critical aircraft structures. IFOS's proposed approach addresses such needs of FAA. In addition to aviation other commercial application areas of the proposed methodology include automotive, wind and gas turbines, the oil industry and land and marine vehicles qualification.
All aviation companies and other entities within this market benefit from in-flight health monitoring of their aircraft structures. An acoustic emission monitoring system attached to the aircraft structure, in the areas susceptible to fatigue and impact damage provides the data that can be used reliably to determine the health status of the aircraft structure in real time. IFOS commercialization strategy is to provide a robust and economically feasible AE monitoring system to both government and private sector fleet aircraft owners and operators. The U.S. government customers for the proposed calibration system include organizations such as NAVY, AIR FORCE and NASA.
More »