Probabilistic and testing analysis for the variability of load spectrum damage in a fleet

Scatter of fatigue life of a fleet is mainly caused by the variability in structures and load spectra. To ensure the safety in service, the probabilistic characterization of load spectrum variability should be researched in durability analysis and testing work. This paper investigates the variability of load damage rate of a fleet. Based on the flight historical parameters measured by individual aircraft tracking (IAT) from hundreds of aircrafts for a certain type of fighter in China, SWT formula and linear damage rule are used to evaluate the load damage, and then, one average and four other individual load spectra are selected corresponding to different damage severities. Fatigue tests are conducted with the Aluminum alloy 7B04-T74 specimens under five spectra and the Titanium alloy TA15M specimens under three of them. The engineering crack initiation lives are measured and the mean lives are estimated assuming the fatigue life following a log-normal distribution. An obvious difference of at least 2.4 times in the load damage rates is found in the fleet. The fatigue lives of a fleet of aircrafts are calculated by Neuber's approach, and the probabilities refer to damage severities of those 5 load spectra in a fleet are evaluated. The statistical analysis of the fatigue lives and the probabilities shows that a lognormal distribution can be used to describe the variability of load damage rate of a fleet. The variation of the load damage rate is in the same order of magnitude with that in structural properties.