Structural Health Monitoring and the Detection of Ballistic Damage

As part of the Operations Support and Sustainment Technologies (OSST) Program, Bell led a team of two subcontractors (Acellent Technologies and Techno-Sciences Inc.) in the structures area to evaluate and validate the ability of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems to effectively diagnose and manage rotorcraft structural integrity. Part of this effort included a Ballistic Demonstration conducted on April 20, 2010 at the AATD Ballistic Test Range for Aircraft Component Survivability (BTRACS), located in Fort Eustis, VA. The goal of this test was to evaluate the ability of a global network of SHM sensors to detect, locate, and characterize airframe impact damage. Different threats sizes and impact locations, gave the detection systems an opportunity to measure a number of distinct events resulting in a range of collected data. The damage detection methodology, which uses wave propagation methods, is discussed along with the results and lessons learned from the test. Both subcontractors, each providing a unique network of sensors that were installed on the same tailboom, demonstrated the capability of their technologies to detect ballistic damage in an airframe structure to a Technology Readiness Level (TRL).