AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE

ENGINEERING

MA4872

Lecture 3

Maintenance Programmes

Nanyang Technological University

13 Jan 2017
(Friday)

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MAINTENANCE STRATEGY

TECHNICAL ECONOMIC
SKILLS
UTILISATION
SYSTEM MANAGEMENT
OPERATIONAL READINESS
RISK ASSESSMENT
COST
RELIABILITY
SAFETY
AIRWORTHINESS
ENVIRONMENTAL
OPERATIONS
PASSENGER

The ultimate objective of a good Maintenance Programme is to keep the

aircraft flying as much as possible, at the lowest cost of maintenance and
ensuring safety.

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
MAINTENANCE PHILOSOPHY
Failure is inherent in all useful design not only because all requirements of economy
derive from insatiable wishes, but more immediately because certain quite specific
conflicts are inevitable once requirements for economy are admitted; and conflicts even
among the requirements of use are not unknown.”
…David Pye

Maintenance Fail Safe Scheduled Maintenance

Concept Fail Passive Hard Life Components
Incorporated Fail Op Soft Life Components
in design Fail Tolerant On Condition
Deferred Defects MSG-3
MEL
Condition Monitoring

 REDUNDANCIES
 PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE SYSTEM
 LINE REPLACEABLE UNITS CONCEPT
Quick Turnaround

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 Requirements for a Maintenance Program

Essential elements in FAA AC 120-16D – Air Carrier Maintenance Program

1. Airworthiness responsibility
2. Maintenance manual
3. Maintenance organisation
4. Maintenance schedule
5. Maintenance record keeping system
6. Accomplishment and approval of maintenance and modifications
7. Contract maintenance
8. Continuing analysis and surveillance
9. Personnel training
10. Hazardous materials and dangerous goods.

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 Objectives of airline maintenance program
1. To ensure the realisation of the inherent safety and reliability levels
of equipment
2. To restore safety and reliability to their inherent levels when
deterioration has occurred
3. To obtain the information necessary for adjustment and optimisation of
the maintenance program when these inherent levels are not met
4. To obtain the information necessary for design improvement of these
items whose inherent reliability proves inadequate
5. To accomplish these objectives at a minimum total cost, including the
cost of maintenance and the cost of residual failures.

To achieve these objectives :

• Perform schedules tasks to maintain inherent capability

• Unscheduled tasks on deteriorated or failed equipment
• Data collection program to monitor status
• Initiate action to modify where reliability standards cannot be achieved
• Maintenance program must be seen as an asset to the business

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 ESTABLISHING A MAINTENANCE PROGRAM

Scheduled Maintenance and servicing are required to ensure that the designed-
in reliability of the aircraft is maintained.

Components with life-limit will form part of a systematic scheduled maintenance

program. But there are many components and systems that cannot fit into this
convenient system.

It is important, for safety and economy for airlines, to develop a well-thought-out

program. This is usually done with the help of the aircraft manufacturers which
will provide the Maintenance Planning Document (MPD).

Maintenance Programs in used in commercial aircraft are developed by

process-oriented or task-oriented approaches.

The MSG-2 is a process –approach while the later MSC-3 is task-approach.

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MAINTENANCE STEERING GROUP

The MSG concept was started by Boeing with the introduction of the B747 in
1968. Today the method is accepted and used for all commercial aircraft.

The aircraft is divided into three maintenance areas : System/Components,

Structure and Engine.

Using the bottom-up analysis, they looked at the components are the most
likely cause of equipment failures. The process to repair them are classified
into Hard Life, On Condition and Condition Monitoring.

The analysis follows the following 5 Steps :

1. Identify area requiring analysis

2. Identify function and failure modes and impact of failure
3. Identify tasks to repair or restore system
4. Assess applicability of tasks and select necessary tasks
5. Evaluate initial sampling threshold (for structures only)

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MSG-2 (Simplified)
1. Does Unit 2. Is the
NO
failure failure
affects evident to
Safety? Crew?

3. Is there an
YES adverse
NO
YES
relationship YES
between Age
and
Reliability?

5. Is there a
4.Is reduced
Check to
reliability
assure
detectable
continued
by Checks?
Function?
NO
YES
NO YES
NO

On On
Condition
Hard Condition Condition Hard
Monitoring
Life (Inspect & (Inspect &
Life
(Operate to Release)
Release)
Failure)

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MAINTENANCE CHECKS

Maintenance Checks are classified into conditions, flight hours or cycle

checks. Some of these are grouped into Check A, B, C and D.

Hard-life : requires the item to be removed before a specified interval. Applied

to safety critical component which has known reliability degradation with age.

On-Condition : is a failure preventive process that requires the item to be

periodically inspected or tested to determine serviceability. Examples are tyre
treads and engine oil analysis where potential failures can be detected.

Condition Monitoring : operate until fail, then replace in an unscheduled

maintenance action. Apply to components with no direct impact on safety, due
to redundancy. There are usually monitored by a reliability control program.
Most avionics components come under this category.

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MSG-3 TASK ORIENTED APPROACH
The Task oriented decision logic was developed by ATA (Air Transport Association of
America). This MSG-3 technique is top-down or “consequence of failure” approach.
Failure analysis is conducted at a much higher level of the aircraft system, instead of
the components.

The logic is used to identify suitable scheduled maintenance tasks to prevent failures
and to maintain the inherent level of reliability of the system.

There are three categories of task : Airframe Systems, Structural Items and Zonal

Tasks for Airframe System are : Lubrication, Servicing, Inspection, Functional Check,
Operational Check, Visual Check, Restoration and Discard.

Tasks for Structural Items are : General visual Inspection, Detailed Inspection and
Special detailed Inspection .

Aircraft are subject to three sources of structural deterioration : Environmental

deterioration, Accidental Damage and Fatigue Damage.

Zonal maintenance tasks covers all systems and components. Ensures adequate
surveillance to determine security of installation and general conditions.

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
MSG-3 – Level I Analysis
Failure Categories
Y 1. Is Failure N
evident to
Crew?

2. Does Unit 3. Does

failure N
Hidden
affects Failure + N
Safety? Related
System
Failure affect
Safety?
4. Does
Failure affect
Operating Y
Capability?

Y Y N

7. Non-
6. Operational
5. Safety Operational 9. Non-Safety
Economic 8. Safety
Economic Economic

Evident Failures – (A) Hidden Failures – (B)

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MSG-3 – Level II Analysis
A Evident Failures
Is a
Is lubricating restoration
Y or Servicing task to Y
Lubricate or applicable reduce Do Restoration
Service and failure
effective? applicable &
effective
Cat 5 Only
N N

Is ability to
Is a discard
detect
Y degradation
task to avoid
Y
Do Operational failure rate
Check of potential Discard
applicable &
failure
effective?
applicable &
effective
Cat 5 Only Cat 5 Only
N N

Is ability to
Is there a
detect
combination
degradation
Do Inspection or Y of potential
of tasks Y Do Combination
Functional which are Task
failure by
Check applicable
ON/OFF A/C
and
test
effective?
applicable ?
Cat 5 Only N
N
Cat 5 : Redesign is Mandatory
Cat 6 & 7 : Redesign Desirable

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MSG-3 – Level II Analysis
B Hidden Failures
Is a
Is lubricating restoration
Y or Servicing task to Y
Lubricate or applicable reduce Do Restoration
Service and failure
effective? applicable &
effective
Cat 8 Only
N N

Is a discard
Is Check to
Y verify
task to avoid
Y
Do Operational failure rate
Check operation Discard
applicable &
applicable &
effective?
effective?

Cat 8 Only Cat 8 Only

N N

Is ability to
Is there a
detect
combination
degradation
Do Inspection or Y of potential
of tasks Y Do Combination
Functional which are Task
failure by
Check applicable
ON/OFF A/C
and
test
effective?
applicable ?
Cat 8 Only N
N
Cat 8 : Redesign is Mandatory
Cat 9 : Redesign Desirable

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability
 MAINTENANCE INTERVALS

Maintenance intervals are determined b the Airline and approved by the authority. This is
normally done in collaboration with the aircraft manufacturer. In the MSG-2 system, the
intervals are more rigid. With MSG-3, there is no definite maintenance interval.

Transit Check : before next take-off and first flight of the day (Stayover Check)

48-hour checks : replaces the previous daily checks

Hours limit checks : 100, 200, 250, 500, etc… depending on airline operating pattern

Operating Cycle Limit checks : Tyres and brakes and landing are determine by operating
cycles. Some structural fatigue checks also fall into this category.

Letter Checks : A checks about 1,000 hrs

C checks about 3,000 hrs
D checks about 25,000 hrs (Heavy Maintenance)

Airlines scheduled their checks according to their operating pattern.

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MA4872 – Aircraft Reliability