Current Research

In an effort to advance NASA’s Aviation Safety Program, this research project seeks to develop numerical tools for Integrated Resilient Aircraft Control (IRAC). The primary objective of IRAC is to enable safe flight and landing for aircrafts flying in adverse conditions.  One example of “adverse” flight conditions is discrete-source damage incurred during flight (due to bird-strike, generic projectiles, hail, etc.).  The Cornell Fracture Group (CFG) is responsible for developing the part of the toolset that predicts residual strength of the damaged aircraft structure based on high-fidelity simulations of crack growth emanating from the damage site.  The overall numerical toolset will communicate real-time damage assessments to the aircraft control system through damage-dependent flight envelopes.  Ultimately, the tools will enable the control system to avoid detrimental flight loads through advanced guidance systems, flight path planning and prediction, and, in some cases, intelligent and adaptive flight control.

The current research task involves computational modeling and assessment of damage to aircraft structures using finite element modeling and analysis, which employs the CFG’s in-house 3D fracture analysis code, FRANC3D\NG.  The research project is a partnership with NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) and is advised by Professor Tony Ingraffea of Cornell and Dr. Ed Glaessgen of NASA LaRC.

 

For more IRAC information:

http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/programs_avsafe.htm

http://www.aoe.vt.edu/research/groups/irac/

NASA Integrated Resilient Aircraft Control

Ashley D. Spear

The idea: If damage event occurs in-flight, control system will query response surface to obtain residual strength of structure based on characteristic damage.  Flight parameters will adjust to account for residual strength, which is the amount of load the damaged structure can carry.