Overview
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) will be very important for Aeronautics. A study from Goodrich stated: 'Structural Health Monitoring shows a great potential in terms of cost savings coming from the benefits it would have on inspections which are currently about 25% of the Life Cycle Cost of an airline'. Some applications are intended to explore the out-of-flight domain conditions However, achieving such goals today is not possible for aeronautics, with the non-intrusiveness, autonomy, size and cost requirements. Eventually, sensing devices need to be built with low power consumption components and to use low power consumption architectures and management, while necessary components or building blocks need to be adapted for aeronautics.
TRIADE will contribute to solving this issue by providing technology building blocks and fully integrated prototypes to achieve power generation, power conservation, embedded powerful intelligence data processing/storage and energy management for structural health monitoring sensing devices in aeronautical applications. TRIADE addresses the AAT-2007 work programme in so far as it integrates new concepts (neural networks), knowledge (energy management) and technologies (SOI) into one application and prototype. Energy management objectives and milestones of TRIADE will be assessed when compared to the following measurable goals: implementing an architecture, where energy management will bridge the gap that exists today between a need of 250 mAh in most modern, comparable products to less than 30 mAh available power in most modern harvesting and storage solutions
Funding
Results
Major final results of the project so far achieved are the following:
- The work performed since the beginning of the TRIADE project allowed to finalise the end users' requirements that led to common needs. The different building blocks were developed in parallel and the trade-offs between harvesters, battery, electronics and overall size of the smart tag were made to favour an optimal integration versus autonomy.
- The different building blocks, i.e. vibration and electromagnetic harvesters, SOI parts for sensor interfaces and neural tool, were delivered.
- Preliminary tests were conducted to evaluate the behaviour of the electronics, showing very good results with respect to temperature, humidity, pressure, vibrations and strain. A first non-functional smart tag was also successfully integrated.
Technical Implications
TRIADE will contribute to the reduction of the aircraft operating costs by 50% through reduction in maintenance, inspection and other direct operating costs by 2020.
Other results
The major deliverable of the project would be the HUMS smart tag device that could be stuck on the structure or in the last layer of the composite of an aircraft in order to record the external parameters like temperature, pressure, moisture and vibrations. The smart tag would respect the compatibility with the manufacturing processes and service life. It targeted the credit card size to be easily used in the aeronautics domain and further allowed for other monitoring applications. From this smart tag several other technological results with breakthrough building blocks were issued, namely:
- a battery optimised for aeronautics embedded devices
- harvester devices using vibration and electromagnetic coupling
- a neural network for smart record triggering and damage assessment
- SOI based ultra low power components.
Strategy targets
Innovating for the future: technology and behaviour.
Promoting more sustainable development.