Connor M. Byington†, Carl S. Byington*, Justin Zhang†, and Michael Hynson‡

Aircraft landing gear (LG) systems are subject to a wide range of stressors due to wear, fatigue, and impact driven mechanisms. Moreover, modern aircraft are often heavily reliant on avionics equipment to support anti-skid and related performance enhancements. As in many arenas, there is a strong desire to transition from overly preventative actions, scheduled part replacements, and unjustified removals towards performing maintenance upon evidence of need, i.e., Condition-based Maintenance (CBM). While maintenance cost drivers and opportunities for improvement are clearly evident, there are many sensor and observable limitations for landing gear prognostics and health management (PHM). To address these CBM challenges for landing gear systems and facilitate transition from scheduled maintenance to reliable implementation of diagnostics and prognostics, a team of developers from SJ Technologies, Inc. (SJ), PHM Design, LLC, and PavCon, LLC, have developed a novel usage-based methodology that incorporates reliability data, aircraft sensor data, and maintenance analysis.

To read the full paper check out my Researchgate posting. or check out my PHM Design page.