Aircraft Structural Reliability Assessment Method Based on Data Fusion

As a theoretical approach to describe and evaluate product reliability, reliability data analysis has gradually evolved with the proposal and application of the reliability concept, becoming a critical component of reliability engineering. With the development of reliability engineering, reliability data analysis demonstrates a more solid foundational role in effective management and application. This paper primarily introduces a method for addressing aircraft safe life issues by integrating full-scale fatigue test results with flight test data. Firstly, based on the “structural similarity criterion” and “equivalent damage” principles, the concept of “equivalent life” is proposed, which converts flight test data into equivalent life under full-scale fatigue test environments. Under this framework, the flight-test aircraft and full-scale fatigue test aircraft are considered to have identical technical states and belong to the same population. The maximum likelihood function is used to estimate the parameters of the distribution function, and a proposed method is employed to calculate the aircraft safe life under specified reliability and confidence levels. The results show that under the same reliability and confidence levels, the safe life calculated by this method is longer than that obtained using the large dispersion coefficient method, enabling full utilization of in-service aircraft and significantly reducing maintenance costs.