scope:

This document is applicable to civil aerospace airframe structural applications where stakeholders are seeking guidance on the definition, development and certification of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) technologies for aircraft health management applications.

For the purpose of this document, SHM is defined as "the process of acquiring and analyzing data from on-board sensors to evaluate the health of a structure." The suite of on-board sensors could include any presently installed aircraft sensors as well as new sensors to be defined in the future.

Purpose

The document has these major purposes:

• Provide guidance on the implementation of SHM in aircraft applications to assist developers in specifying the measurements, accuracy, reliability and other requirements of the system to be designed.
• Provide information on structural maintenance practices and provide guidance on how SHM can be incorporated within or as modifications to current maintenance and airworthiness documents.
• Standardize and harmonize worldwide understanding about SHM (including terminology).
• Provide basic requirements to guide SHM technology development.
• Recommend certification matters that are relevant to SHM.

Field of Application

This document may be applied by SHM stakeholders to assist with, among other things:

definition, development, maturation, design and provide guidance on certification of SHM systems for application in civil and military aircraft;

modification of aircraft maintenance and aircraft structural health management to use and benefit from SHM systems;

improving maintenance practices by utilizing alternative tools to conventional NDI;

execution of scheduled and/or unscheduled maintenance tasks in a more time and cost effective manner.

NOTE: Although guidance such as this may be crucial to successful implementation of an SHM system, use of this guidance alone cannot be assumed to constitute or ensure regulatory agency acceptance. Any regulatory accepted use to fulfill inspection requirements will require negotiation and agreement with the appropriate regulatory agency. This SAE document is not a regulatory document and neither the applicants nor the Regulatory Agency is compelled to follow them unless there is associated Regulatory Agency policy.