Basically the electromagnetic protection is designed to build a margin between a defined environment and the susceptibility level of the electrical/electronic equipment/system.
The design itself must take into account the aging effects, and, a compromise has to be done between, a very robust installation minimizing aging effects and then with no maintenance at all, and, a less robust installation lighter and cheaper but more sensitive to aging effects and then requiring maintenance actions.
The objective of the maintenance program is to keep the protection margin to an acceptable level.
Very often the aging effects are not completely known at the beginning of the life of the aeroplane and as a consequence an assurance plan has to be realised to continuously validate and/or update the maintenance program.
The paper describes a method which optimises the maintenance program and the assurance plan.
It includes:
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- the identification of all the protection elements
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- the assessment of the degree of participation of each of those element into the margin
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-the minimised maintenance actions deduced from the above
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- a minimised assurance plan to validate the maintenance program
The paper gives an example of the application of the method on Airbus A320.