Development of aircraft spoiler demonstrators to test strain-based SHM under realistic loading

An idealized demonstrator of an civil aircraft wing spoiler in scale 1:2 is developed to evaluate strain-based structural health monitoring (SHM) methods under realistic loading conditions. SHM promises to increase operational safety and reduce maintenance costs of optimized lightweight structures by its early damage detection capabilities. Also localization and size identification of damages could be shown for simple parts, e.g. beams or plates in many laboratory experiments. However, the application of SHM systems on real structures under realistic loading conditions is cost intensive and time consuming. Furthermore, testing facilities which are large enough to fit full scale aircraft parts are often not available. The proposed procedure of developing a scaled spoiler demonstrator under idealized loading and support conditions solves these issues for strain-based SHM. The procedure shows how to reproduce the deformation shape of a real aircraft spoiler under a heavy loading condition during landing by numerical optimization. Subsequent finite element simulations and experimental measurements proved similar deformations and strain states of the idealized demonstrator and the real spoiler. Thus, using the developed idealized spoiler demonstrator strain-based SHM systems can be tested under loading conditions similar to realistic operational loads by significantly reduced test effort and costs.