SAMAS 2: structural health and ballistic impact monitoring and prognosis on a military helicopter

Purpose – The paper aims to introduce the innovative structural health and ballistic impact monitoring and prognosis on a military helicopter (SAMAS 2) project. The purpose of SAMAS 2 is the development of a corrosion structural health monitoring and prognostics (SHMP) system for evaluating the corrosion level of the different structural elements and estimating the residual life before their substitution is required. Additionally, the creation of an advanced tool for ballistic impact, load and damage monitoring is an integral part of the defined SHMP tool. Design/methodology/approach – The paper focuses on developing an SHMP method for ballistic impact monitoring by integrating simulated data from detailed finite element models, experimental data collected from both full-scale and simplified setups and intelligent algorithms capable of learning the underlying relationships between specific damage-sensitive parameters and accurate damage characterization. Additionally, the development of a corrosion monitoring SHMP system aims to establish correlations between corrosion severity, its progression rate and data from environmental and active sensors. This is achieved through the implementation of intelligent algorithms and advanced techniques, such as transfer learning. Findings – The paper presents empirical insights and results from preliminary studies, offering strong motivation to further pursue this research endeavor. It suggests that the development of an SHMP tool for detecting corrosion degradation and ballistic impact damage can be accomplished based on advanced and innovative data-driven and model-based methodologies. Originality/value – This work has been developed based on the results from the SAMAS 2 project, a Cat.-B (B PRJ-RT 1074) project coordinated by the European Defense Agency and financed by two nations, Italy and Poland. The project consortium includes the following parties: Italy (Politecnico di Milano, Leonardo S.p.A. - Helicopter Division, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) and Poland (Instytut Techniczny Wojsk Lotniczych – Air Force Institute of Technology, Military Aviation Works No. 1, Institute of Aviation, Military University of Technology).