Modeling of reliability and performance assessment of a dissimilar redundancy actuation system with failure monitoring

Actuation system is a vital system in an aircraft, providing the force necessary to move flight control surfaces. The system has a significant influence on the overall aircraft performance and its safety. In order to further increase already high reliability and safety, Airbus has implemented a dissimilar redundancy actuation system (DRAS) in its aircraft. The DRAS consists of a hydraulic actuation system (HAS) and an electro-hydrostatic actuation system (EHAS), in which the HAS utilizes a hydraulic source (HS) to move the control surface and the EHAS utilizes an electrical supply (ES) to provide the motion force. This paper focuses on the performance degradation processes and fault monitoring strategies of the DRAS, establishes its reliability model based on the generalized stochastic Petri nets (GSPN), and carries out a reliability assessment considering the fault monitoring coverage rate and the false alarm rate. The results indicate that the proposed reliability model of the DRAS, considering the fault monitoring, can express its fault logical relation and redundancy degradation process and identify potential safety hazards.