Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription or Fee Access

Flight Demonstration of a SHM System on an OH-58 Aircraft

W. GIRARD, B. TUCKER, N. BORDICK, S. J. LEE, A. KUMAR, D. ZHANG, F. LI, H. CHUNG, S. BEARD

Abstract


Acellent Technologies Inc. is working with the U.S. Army and Bell Helicopter to test a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system called the Tail Boom Crack Detection System (TBCDS) for the OH-58 aircraft. Sensors placed in the tail boom area of interest monitor the structure and communicate with the HON-1134 Honeywell Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) and Personal Computer – Ground Based System (PC-GBS). The PC-GBS processes the data and displays the health of the monitored portion of the tail boom to the user. The TBCDS consists of SMART Layer sensors, an onboard ScanGenie II diagnostic unit, and SmartPatch software. The SMART Layer sensor is a network of piezoelectric (PZT) discs embedded on a thin dielectric film. Each disc can be used as an actuator or sensor, enabling active and passive real-time monitoring. The ScanGenie diagnostic hardware operates the SMART Layer and interfaces with the onboard HUMS system. The SmartPatch software, which typically resides on the ground station, analyzes the collected data to assess the structural integrity of the monitored component or area. This paper provides an in-depth view of the installation and flight-testing of the TBCDS system on the Bell OH-58 demonstrator aircraft. This includes the installation of the sensors pre-configured and designed for the tailboom area, wiring, brackets and mounting for the hardware and the tie-in into the OH-58 HUMS system. Data collected in different aircraft flight scenarios will be presented along with an in-depth analysis of the data.

Full Text:

PDF