Horizon2020 grant for aircraft maintenance research

Aerospace engineering researchers Dr. Santos, Dr Zarouchas, Dr. ir. Verhagen and Dr. Mitici received a 6.8 million euros Horizon2020 grant for their proposal to build an Integrated Fleet Health Management solution. The researchers will validate adaptive condition-based maintenance in a 6-month field test and will present a roadmap for its further implementation. The potential savings for Europe alone can amount up to 700 million euros per year. At the time of project submission all four were still tenure trackers.

Costly maintenance

The majority of aircraft maintenance is preventive in which much time is wasted checking the integrity of systems and structures that are healthy. It is pre-scheduled according to fixed intervals to ensure the aviation industry track record of less than one accident per 10 million flights. The researchers plan to analyse all sensory data, of more than 1 Tb per day for a modern aircraft, and use machine-learning methods to develop new diagnostic and prognostic algorithms. They will integrate these into a fleet maintenance management decision support tool to increase overall aircraft availability and to reduce unscheduled aircraft maintenance events.

Parties involved

The industrial parties involved cover the entire spectrum from airline to sensor technology to an engineering and manufacturing company and an ICT services corporation. They, and other universities and research institutes were eager to join the collaboration.

The TU Delft will lead the project, with the four Delft researchers themselves coming from the Aerospace Transport and Operations group and the Structural Integrity & Composites group. Four to five new PhD’s will be hired at TU Delft to reach the project goals.

Horizon2020

 

Horizon2020 is the eighth framework program by the European Commission. It encourages universities and research laboratories to bring innovative technologies to higher maturity levels.