Browse Topic: Maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO)
The automotive air-conditioning service ports task force conducted a field survey with MACS (Mobile Air Climate Systems Association) in June 2021. The scope of this survey was to determine the types of failures reported primarily at member service shops related to automotive air-conditioning service ports.
Researchers from CompPair and the European Space Agency have developed a new composite material for spacecraft with an embedded healing agent. European Space Agency, Paris, France Healable spacecraft structures could soon be possible thanks to cutting-edge composite technology. Swiss companies CompPair and CSEM, and Belgian company Com&Sens have partnered with the European Space Agency (ESA) to modify their self-healing carbon fiber product for use in space transportation. Project Cassandra - an abbreviation for Composite Autonomous Sensing and Repair - includes sensors and a heating element within a composite carbon-fiber material, allowing spacecraft to autonomously repair initial stages of damage.
This Surface Vehicle & Aerospace Recommended Practice offers best practices and a methodology by which IVHM functionality relating to components and subsystems should be integrated into vehicle or platform level applications. The intent of the document is to provide practitioners with a structured methodology for specifying, characterizing and exposing the inherent IVHM functionality of a component or subsystem using a common functional reference model, i.e., through the exchange of design-time data and the application of standard vehicle data communications interfaces. This document includes best practices and guidance related to the specification of the information that must be exchanged between the functional layers in the IVHM system or between lower-level components/subsystems and the higher-level control system to enable health monitoring and tracking of system degradation severity. The intent is to provide an IVHM system that can robustly report the degradation of a given
This SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) describes standard methods of heat application to cure thermosetting resins for commercial aircraft composite repairs. The methods described in this document shall only be used when specified in an approved repair document or with the agreement of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) or regulatory authority.
This Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) describes methods of vacuum bagging, a process used to apply pressure in adhesive bonding and heat curing of thermosetting composite materials and metalbond for commercial aircraft parts. If this document is used for the vacuum bagging of other than thermosetting composite materials and metalbond, the fitness for this purpose must be determined by the user. The methods shall only be used when specified in an approved Repair Document or with the agreement of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).
This document applies to off-road forestry work machines defined in SAE J1116 or ISO 6814.
This paper explores the potential of three different hybridization solutions for a medium-sized rotorcraft: an electric tail rotor, an "eco-mode", and a "boost-mode". The solutions were evaluated as a retrofit to a generalized medium lift rotorcraft and the impact on performance across five mission types, representative of the typical use cases for a military rotorcraft, was assessed. Two separate rotorcraft performance modelling tools were used to carry out the assessment, allowing for the results to be cross-examined. The models predicted performance gains for the eco-mode configuration when utilizing the single engine cruise capability for low-speed applications. Likewise, the models predicted improved performance for the boost-mode configuration when operating at hot and high (6,000 ft, 95°F) conditions due to the increased power provided by the battery system. However, all three solutions suffered from increased platform empty weight which negatively impacted performance at
Helicopter maintenance troubleshooting faces significant challenges due to fragmented documentation, outdated procedural manuals, and reliance on human expertise, all of which threaten flight safety and operational efficiency. While Knowledge Graphs (KGs) effectively model hierarchical system relationships and causal dependencies, they struggle with dynamic unstructured data. Conversely, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems access technical manuals but risk hallucinating unsafe procedures without structural grounding. This paper introduces KG-RAG, a novel hybrid troubleshooting framework specifically engineered for helicopter systems, addressing a critical gap as existing work focuses predominantly on fixed-wing aircraft. The framework merges knowledge graphs modeling fault causality and maintenance history with multi-dimensional retrieval combining graph-based reasoning, vector embeddings, and keyword-based search. This integration enables contextual interpretation of
This paper describes the characteristics of the Leonardo Advanced Tiltrotor Aircraft (ATA) concept, focusing on the relationship between goals, targeted improvements and enabling design features. The paper shows the design drivers such as performance, operational capabilities, and maneuverability and it describes how the attributes of the concept originated, showing trade-off and compromises approached during the genesis of the concept. The design drivers are translated into areas of interests, including download, drag, aerodynamic efficiency, rolling and yawing inertia, detectability, maintainability and engine retrofit ability. Finally, these areas are linked to the physical features of the concept, showing how they have been selected and combined to achieve the best overall benefit at platform level.
Rolling-element bearings in rotorcraft dynamic systems are critical components susceptible to rolling contact fatigue (RCF), a dominant degradation mechanism manifesting through subsurface-initiated spalling, surface micropitting, and fatigue fractures. Robust inspection strategies compliant with EASA and FAA requirements are therefore essential. Traditional methods are often invasive, requiring disassembly, and are susceptible to human-factor errors. Smart Duplex introduces a design-for-monitoring architecture integrating in-situ videoscopic and coherence scanning interferometry (CSI) for high-resolution 3D surface mapping, including under partial grease coverage. This paper details a repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) framework ensuring metric consistency; a maintainability assessment projecting significant man-hour reductions and high availability; certification rationale emphasizing airworthiness improvements via enhanced detectability, workload reduction, and digitized
Hybrid bearings, which pair traditional bearing-steel raceways with ceramic rolling elements, can offer improved performance over full-metal bearings, particularly in aerospace applications. Because rolling-element bearings are critical components, effective condition monitoring is essential to prevent in-flight failures and support proactive maintenance strategies. Wear-debris monitoring is widely used in these applications to detect and diagnose bearing fault modes. To compare degradation behavior and monitoring signatures, bearing life tests were conducted on hybrid and full-metal bearings under matched Hertzian stress conditions. The results showed that differences in degradation curves between the two bearing types were small relative to the overall variability in bearing life. Additionally, hybrid bearings that develop rolling-element pitting were observed to progress toward raceway spall formation. This paper was presented at ERF Forum 51 but has been updated with new findings
USC Viterbi researcher received Office of Naval Research's Young Investigator Program award with Study on dexterous robotics. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA In dynamic, unstructured environments like ship decks and even home kitchens, robots today still struggle to perform precision tasks such as tightening bolts or handling wires. This makes critical ship maintenance tasks difficult. USC researcher, Erdem Bıyık, aims to advance robots' finger manipulation and integrate human feedback to enable real-time learning for robots in an upcoming three-year, $750,000 project funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
This document is a guideline for format, structure and content for ground support equipment (GSE) technical manuals. This document focuses on requirements specific to the GSE industry and does not cover general technical publication practices. Additional standards for GSE and for manufacturer’s publications exist and may add requirements beyond what is covered in this standard. This may include EU Directive 2006/42/EC. This document is written in specific terms by intention, and conforms to recognized practices in the industry. When the word SHALL is used in this standard, it indicates a requirement that must be adhered to in total and does not allow for variance. When the word SHOULD is used, it indicates a recommended practice which allows the manual writer to use discretionary judgment. This document does not apply to electronic test equipment.
This document provides information on the preparation and use of video for operational and maintenance training of qualified personnel associated with GSE.
Without reliability and signal integrity, aerospace communications risk severe signal degradation and reduced security, posing risks to both personnel and mission-critical data. These challenges are particularly critical for applications that depend on military aircraft, satellite communications, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). As global demand for real-time data continues to surge, communication infrastructure requires regular maintenance and upgrades to maintain secure and reliable performance.
Missions to the moon and other planets will require large-scale infrastructure that would benefit from autonomous assembly by robots without on-site human intervention. Modular and reconfigurable structures, such as those built from lattice-based building blocks, are reusable and easy to manufacture. Furthermore, reconfigurable systems have the potential to outperform traditional, fixed infrastructure in applications that require high levels of flexibility in addition to structural strength and rigidity. NASA Ames Research Center has developed a novel and efficient mobile bipedal robot system to construct low-mass, high precision, and largescale infrastructure.
In the electrical machines, detrimental effects resulted often due to the overheating, such as insulation material degradation, demagnetization of the magnet and increased Joule losses which result in decreased lifetime, and reduced efficiency of the motor. Hence, by effective cooling methods, it is vital to optimize the reliability and performance of the electric motors and to reduce the maintenance and operating costs. This study brings the analysis capability of CFD for the air-cooling of an Electric-Motor (E-Motor) powering on Deere Equipment's. With the aggressive focus on electrification in agriculture domain and based on industry needs of tackling rising global warming, there is an increasing need of CFD modeling to perform virtual simulations of the E-Motors to determine the viability of the designs and their performance capabilities. The thermal predictions are extremely vital as they have tremendous impact on the design, spacing and sizes of these motors.
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