Andrew Doyle/LONDON
BRITISH AEROSPACE plans to offer a health-and-usage monitoring system (HUMS) on the latest version of its Hawk advanced training aircraft. The UK company has awarded Analysis Management & Systems (AMS) of South Africa a one-year contract to develop and integrate the system.
The HUMS will be offered as a standard feature to potential Hawk customers such as Australia, Israel and South Africa. The system is designed to reduce significantly the life-cycle costs of the aircraft. The HUMS is increasingly used in helicopters, but this is believed to be the first full application of the system on a fixed-wing aircraft.
BAe claims that the HUMS will extend the life of the airframe and boost safety by comprehensively monitoring the performance of the structure, systems and critical engine-components. It is also aimed at improving maintenance planning, reducing the number of "no-faults-found" events, and providing data for accident investigations.
The system will consist of an AMS data-acquisition unit, BAe (Systems and Equipment) SCR500 crash-survivable memory unit, and a range of transducers, potentiometers, accelerometers and strain gauges for onboard data collection.
Structural health monitoring will be accomplished using 21 strain gauges with a sampling rate of up to 1,024Hz, while engine-health monitoring involves low-cycle fatigue recording of five engine components, coupled with turbine-gas-temperature readings. An AMS- developed ground system will consist of a ruggedised, hand-held, personal computer (PC) for downloading data from the aircraft, and a desktop PC to carry out post-flight data processing, analysis and database management.
BAe recently revealed that the Eurofighter EF2000 incorporates, an integrated structural, HUMS.
Source: Flight International