METHOD AND TOOL FOR AIDED AIRCRAFT DESIGN USING A CRITERION OF OPERATIONAL AVAILABILITY

• US 20110218783A1
• Filed: 03/01/2011
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Airbus Operations (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS NV)
• Original Assignee: Airbus Operations (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS NV)
• Inventors: MAURIN, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 9,015,017 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 703/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2111/20 Configuration CAD, e.g. designing by assembling or positioning modules selected from libraries of predesigned modules
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/15 Vehicle, aircraft or watercraft design
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for the computer-aided design of an aeronautic system forming all or part of an aircraft, using a criterion of maintenance time cost over a given period of use. The cost is computed as the weighted sum (250) of a first component (220) representing the mean flight time lost during this period, of a second component (230) representing the mean unscheduled maintenance time for this system during said period, and a third component representing the scheduled maintenance time for this system throughout said period. The configuration corresponding to the lowest time cost is then selected (260).

Claims

1. Computer-aided method for designing an aeronautic system forming all or part of an aircraft, characterized in that a plurality of different configurations of this system are extracted (210) from a database, and in that for each of these configurations,

a maintenance time cost of said system is estimated for a given period of use by means of the following steps:

computing (220) a first component equal to the mean flight time lost by the aircraft subsequent to a system failure during said period of use;

computing (230) a second component equal to the mean unscheduled maintenance time subsequent to a system failure during said period of use;

computing (240) a third component equal to the scheduled maintenance time for this system throughout said period of use;

obtaining (250) said time cost as a weighted sum of the first, second and third components by means of first, second and third cost factors respectively; and

in that the configuration of the system having the lowest maintenance time cost is selected (260).

2. The computer-aided design method according to claim 1, characterized in that the first component is computed from the probability that the system will be affected during said period of use by a failure preventing the aircraft from flying, from the mean diversion time of the aircraft and from the mean time for verification/repair of the system on the ground.

3. The computer-aided design method according to claim 1, characterized in that the second component is computed from the probability that the system will be affected, during said period of use, by a failure which, although it does not prevent the aircraft from flying, it nevertheless requires an unscheduled maintenance operation, and on the mean duration of this maintenance operation.

4. The computer-aided design method according to claim 1, characterized in that the third component is computed from the number of scheduled maintenance operations for the system throughout said period of use, and from the mean duration of these operations.

5. The computer-aided design method according to claim 1, characterized in that the first cost factor is higher than the second cost factor which itself is higher than the third cost factor.

6. The computer-aided design method according to claim 1, characterized in that by means of a graphical interface the maintenance time cost of at least one configuration of the system is represented, the first, second and third components each being represented by a bar of length proportional to their weighted value, the bars for the different components being concatenated to highlight said time cost of maintenance.

7. The computer-aided design method according to claim 6, characterized in that said system comprises a plurality of equipment items, and in that at least one bar associated with one component is fractionated into blocks so as to represent the respective contributions made by the different items of equipment and/or different types of failure to this component.

8. The computer-aided design method according to claim 6 or 7, characterized in that the graphical interface, for each component, also represents a worst case situation, the representation of the worst case for the first component being the maximum flight time lost subsequent to a system failure preventing the aircraft from flying, for the second component it is the maximum unscheduled maintenance time for a failure not preventing the aircraft from flying, and for the third component it is the scheduled maintenance time for the system throughout said period of use increased by a risk margin.

9. The computer-aided design method according to claim 1, characterized in that said period of use is the lifetime of the aircraft.

10. Computer program characterized in that, when run on a computer, it implements the computer-aided design method according to any of the preceding claims.