Condition based operational risk assessment for improved aircraft operability

This paper details a new proactive function to be added to today’s line aircraft maintenance turn-around-time (TAT) process, where next flight decisions are assisted by the health assessment function of the integrated vehicle health management (IVHM) of an aircraft. 

Here appears the “operational risk assessment” concept, an extended function of the operational support that will be supported on the IVHM information to develop predictions of the future maintenance relevant events (e.g. component degradation driven repair or replacement events) and its impact to the operational planning of the aircraft/fleet. Based on the operational risk assessment short term, scheduled line maintenance activities turn into proactively defined. The paper will also illustrate the first step involved in this approach: A “conditional view” function that is responsible of the provision of a remaining useful life (RUL) prediction of a health managed component. This conditional view provides a basis for operational risk estimation on the A/C, which in turn serves to identify maintenance actions that can be deferred.