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OPTIMAL MAINTENANCE OF AIRFRAME CRACKS

Institute of Consumer Sciences and Human Life, Kinjo Gakuin University, 1723 Omori 2–chome, Moriyama-ku, Nagoya 463-8521, Japan

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TOSHIO NAKAGAWA

Department of Business Administration, Aichi Institute of Technology, 1247 Yachigusa, Yagusa-cho, Toyota 470-0392, Japan

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218539314500144Cited by:2 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

As an airframe has finite lifetime and has to be designed lightweight, the maintenance of airframe is indispensable to operate aircraft without any serious troubles. After an airframe begins to operate, it suffers stresses and the stress causes the damage such as cracks of the airframe. Cracks grow with operation time and cause catastrophic phenomenon such as the mid-air disintegration when they become greater than a critical size. So, the managerial crack size is prespecified and Preventive Maintenance (PM) undergoes when the inspected crack size exceeds it. In this paper, optimal PM policies of airframe crack failure are discussed. Airframe states are represented as the Markov renewal process, and one-step transition probabilities are discussed. The total expected cost from the start of operation to the end by failure is defined and the optimal PM policies which minimize it is discussed.

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