Fatigue data for aircraft structural element

Abstract
Aircrafts powered by piston engine represent the bulk of the fixed wing fleet. Large majorities of
these aircrafts are equipped with single, air-cooled, and horizontally opposed, piston engines.
The mechanical failure in any of the piston engine components, especially concerning fatigue
failure of the cylinder head (CH) made of an aluminum-casting alloy may have serious or fatal
consequences to the safety of the crew and the aircraft. Therefore, the aim of this study is to
identify the root cause(s) of repetitive premature failures in an aircraft engine CH.
Two piston engines of the training aircraft Utva-75 have malfunctioned during the flight mission
due to the fatigue cracking of their aluminum cast CHs. Visual inspection revealed that
transverse cracking had occurred between the fifth and the sixth deep integral cooling fins.
Based on the fractographic analysis, observation of the characteristic ratchet and beach marks
indicated the occurrence of fatigue failure. The crack initiated from multiple origins located on
the inner flange fillet on the exhaust side of the CHs. The metallographic examination revealed
that the fatigue was promoted from pre-existing material defect due to a high concentration of
shrinkage pores at the initiation crack site and can be most likely associated with the
manufacturing process of casting. The finite element method, utilized to determine the stress
state of the cylinder assembly, also confirmed that the crack origin was located at the most
stressed area of the cylinder assembly, i.e., on the inner flange fillet of the exhaust side of the
CH.

Keywords

Aircraft;
Cylinder head;
Failure analysis;
Fatigue failure;
Finite element analysis

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Military Technical Institute (Ministry of Defense of the
Republic of Serbia) for experimental program. The University of Defence in Belgrade has
supported this research within the project No. VA-TT/02/13-15 titled Contribution to the
development of the forensic engineering in the domain of the failure analysis of cylindrical
structures. The last but not the least special thanks to the Transportation Safety Board of

CanadaOperational Services Branch for providing free access to their engineering reports on
similar investigation.