Teardown inspection of full scale airframe fatigue test articles

摘要

This report presents the processes which were developed to identify and track test parts, perform inspections, failure analysis and record test data obtained during consecutive teardown inspections on multiple full-scale airframe fatigue test articles. After having been subjected to the equivalent of two lifetimes of simulated flight spectrum fatigue testing, selected structural areas from two full-scale airframe fatigue test articles consisting of three model configurations were completely disassembled and inspected for cracks. This data would then be analyzed to update aircraft structural maintenance plans.