Aircraft

Maintenance
Md Jalal Uddin Rumi
Assistant Professor, AE Dept. MIST
 Sources of A/C Maintenance

Scheduled/Planned/Proactive Maintenance
Source documents of preparing maintenance schedule are:

• Maintenance Review Board (MRB) document

• Maintenance Planning Document (MPD)
• Airworthiness Directives (AD)
• International and CAAB requirements
• Service experience (Out comes of Reliability Control Program)
 Sources of A/C Maintenance

Unscheduled/Unplanned/Reactive Maintenance
The necessity of unscheduled maintenance arises in
the following situation:
• Aircraft maintenance Log (AML) entry

• Cabin maintenance Log (CML) entry

• NRC during scheduled maintenance

 Maintenance Planning Document (MPD)

1.The Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) gives tasks

for each type of scheduled maintenance check.

2.Airlines use the MPD to make task cards that the

technician uses during the maintenance checks.
 Maintenance Planning Document (MPD)

A typical Maintenance Planning Data Document has these sections:

- Introduction
- Airline Dimensions
- Zone Diagrams
- Access Doors and Panels
- Lubrication and Filters
- Systems Maintenance Program
- Structural Inspection Program
- Component Information
- Corrosion Prevention and Control Programs
- Appendix A - Maintenance Program Man-Hours
- Appendix B - Highlights.
 Airplane Maintenance Manual (AMM)

Part I is the Systems Description Section (SDS).

Part II is practices and procedures.

The practices and procedures have data in relation to these functions:

- Removal/installation of components
- Component location
- Maintenance practices
- Servicing
- Adjustment/test
- Inspection/check
- Cleaning/painting
- Repair.
 Some of Other Manuals

• System Schematics Manual

• Wiring Diagram Manual

• Illustrated Parts Catalog

• Standard Wiring Practices Manual

• Fault Reporting/Isolation Manual

• Structural Repair Manual

• Dispatch Deviation Guide

A/C Maintenance Philosophies
 Reactive Maintenance
• Reactive or Unplanned maintenance is a legacy practice: maintenance only after the
manifestation of the defect, breakdown or stoppage.

• It is appropriate in facilities where the installed machinery is minimal and the plant is not
totally dependent on the reliability of any individual machine

• It might also be appropriate when the failure rate is minimal and failure does not result in
serious cost setbacks or safety consequence.

• Reactive maintenance is of 2 types – Corrective maintenance and Emergency maintenance

 Corrective and Emergency Maintenance
• Corrective maintenance is defined as the activity carried out after a failure has occurred and
is intended to restore an item to a state in which it can perform its required function.

• Emergency maintenance is defined as the maintenance activity that is necessary to

accomplish immediately to avoid serious consequences.
 Corrective Maintenance
Advantages Disadvantages

Lower short-term costs Increased long-term costs due to unplanned

equipment downtime.

Requires less staff since less work is being Possible secondary equipment or process
done damage.

Prone to neglect of assets

 Proactive Maintenance
• Proactive or planned maintenance can be further classified as preventive and predictive
maintenance.

• As the name suggests it does not wait for the equipment to fail before commencing the
maintenance operations.

Proactive maintenance is of 2 types: Preventive and Predictive Maintenance.

 Preventive Maintenance
• Preventive maintenance is the strategy organized to perform maintenance at predetermined
intervals to reduce the probability of failure or performance degradation.

• It can be classified into Constant Interval, Age-based or Imperfect Maintenance

 Preventive Maintenance
Advantages Disadvantages

Over all very cost effective Catastrophic failure still a risk

Flexibility can allow for adjustment of Labour Intensive

schedule to accommodate other work

Increased equipment life Performance of maintenance based on

schedule not required

Saved energy cost resulting from Risk of damage when conducting unneeded
equipment running from pick efficiency maintenance

Reduced equipment or process failure Saving not readily visible without a base
line

Over all saving between 12% to 18%

 Constant interval, Age Based & Imperfact
Maintenance
• Constant Interval Maintenance: As the name suggests it is done at fixed intervals (in
addition to any maintenance prompted by failure that is performed when it manifests).

• Age-based Maintenance: In this strategy, preventive maintenance at fixed intervals is

carried out only after the system has reached a specific age, say ‘X’. If the system fails
prior to X, maintenance action is taken and the next maintenance is scheduled to X units
later.

• Imperfect Maintenance: In the above two schemes, the system is assumed to be restored to
its original condition after a preventive maintenance. However it may be the case that the
condition of the system is in between good (original) and bad (failure). This is the premise
of imperfect maintenance strategies which take into consideration the uncertainty of the
current state of the equipment while scheduling future activities.
 Predictive Maintenance
• Predictive and preventive maintenance differ in the scheduling of maintenance.

• It is performed on a fixed schedule whereas in the former it is adaptively determined.

• Predictive maintenance can be classified into Condition-based Maintenance and Reliability

Centered Maintenance
 Predictive Maintenance
Advantages Disadvantages

Increased component operational Increased investment of diagnostic

life/availability equipment

Allows for pre-emptive corrective action Increased staff training for analysing data

Decreased part and labour cost Saving not readily visible without a
baseline/history

Improved safety and environment

Energy savings

Over all saving between 8% to 12% over

preventive maintenance
 Condition-based Maintenance
Condition-based Maintenance (CBM): this is a decision making strategy where the decision
to perform maintenance is reached by observing the “condition” of the system and/or its
components.
I. The condition of a system is quantified by parameters that are continuously
monitored and are system or application specific. In an industrial or production
environment, the system is exposed to random disturbances, which cause deviations
in the operational characteristics. Hence it is highly justified to monitor the condition
of system and base the maintenance decision on the state of the system.

II. Some of the advantages of CBM are prior warning of impending failure and
increased precision in failure prediction. The disadvantage, of course, is the necessity
to install and use monitoring equipment and to develop some level of modeling or
decision-making strategy.
 Condition Monitoring
Advantages Disadvantages
Extend service life Monitoring equipment costs
Maximise machine/equipment Operational costs (running the program)
productivity
Minimise unscheduled downtime Skilled personnel needed
Safely extend overhaul intervals Strong management commitment needed.

Improve repair time A significant run-in time to collect

machine histories and trends is usually
needed.
Increased machine/equipment life
Improve product quality
Reduce product cost
Enhance product safety
 Reliability Centered Maintenance
• Reliability centered maintenance (RCM): this approach is to utilize reliability estimates of
the system to formulate a cost-effective schedule for maintenance.

• RCM is a union of two tasks, one of which is to analyze and categorize failure modes based
on the effects of the failure on the system and the other is to assess the impact of
maintenance schedules on reliability.

• Though RCM-based maintenance intervals were determined similarly to planned or

scheduled maintenance, condition monitoring techniques are increasingly being used to
determine the optimum interval.
 NDT In Aircraft Maintenance
• During aircraft maintenance 'NON DESTRUCTIVE TESTING' (NDT) is the most
economical way of performing inspection and this is the only way of discovering defects.

• In order to maintain the aircraft defects free and ensure a high degree of quality & reliability
and as a part of inspection programme, usually following NDT methods are applied:
1) Liquid penetrant
2) Magnetic particle
3) Eddy current
4) Ultrasonic
5) Radiography (x-ray/gamma ray)
6) Visual/Optical
7) Sonic/Resonance
8) Infrared Thermography.
 Line Maintenance
Line Maintenance, generally refers to minor or scheduled
maintenance carried out on aircraft that are:
I. In service; and that is preparing for its first flight in service after a

period of being out of service

II. En route and stopped before its next flight – Servicing or repair

between successive flights

III. Preparing and readying an aircraft for flight during a period of service

IV. Maintenance activities being performed to ensure that the aircraft is

airworthy and fit for flight.

 Base Maintenance
• Base Maintenance exclusively performs schedule maintenance works
for the aircraft in fleet.

• The check is scheduled by the maintenance planning for the specific

check and check schedule is fixed in co-ordination with Central
Control for aircraft availability.

• Maintenance Planning raises Job cards from specific aircraft

maintenance schedule and required rated personnel are detailed to
complete the specific check.

• In addition to schedule Job, Base Maintenance actively participates

and performs unscheduled maintenance such as rectification of
defects, modifications & inspections arising from SB’s / AD’s and
engine replacement, if required.
 Maintenance Documents for Schedule and Unscheduled Maintenance

Scheduled Maintenance
These are examples of scheduled maintenance work:
A. Through stop checks
B. Airplane turn around
C. Daily checks
D. Planned checks.

Required documents to do scheduled maintenance:

A. Maintenance Planning Document (MPD)
B. Airplane Maintenance Manual (AMM).

Following documents supply support data to do scheduled maintenance:

A. System Schematics Manual (SSM)
B. Wiring Diagram Manual (WDM)
C. Structural Repair Manual (SRM)
D. Illustrated Parts Catalog (IPC).
 Maintenance Documents for Unscheduled Maintenance

These are examples of unscheduled maintenance work:

1. Flight faults
2. Ground faults
3. Service problems
4. Structural damage.

Required documents to do unscheduled maintenance:

1. Fault Reporting Manual (FRM)
2. Fault Isolation Manual (FIM)
3. Structural Repair Manual (SRM)
4. Dispatch Deviations Guide (DDG)
5. Airplane Maintenance Manual (AMM).
QUESTIONS?