Use of Sensor Data of Aircraft Turbine Engine for Education of Aircraft Maintenance

Abstract

Aircraft maintenance requires experienced experts with appropriate skills because an aircraft engine is complex and has many parts and components whose conditions require monitoring. Sensor technologies are also required for the maintenance as well as the operation of the aircraft engine as numerous sensors are used to collect and analyze data for maintenance. Therefore, education on how to understand and analyze the data is critical to educating experts in aircraft maintenance. To cultivate such experts, an appropriate educational program is required to improve competencies in the field of aircraft systems. In this study, we adopt the problem-based learning (PBL) method based on sensor data to improve students' ability in practical courses to teach the starting system and hot section inspection (HSI) of the PT6A lightweight turboprop engine manufactured by Pratt & Whitney Canada®. A questionnaire survey was carried out to evaluate professional knowledge, teamwork skills, and the ability to organize, analyze, describe, and solve problems before and after PBL. The results indicate that PBL helped students improve their data analysis abilities. Students showed significant improvements in understanding the operation and function of the engine system and in solving problems with PBL based on sensor data. Education using PBL and sensor data is expected to contribute to developing education on aircraft engine systems and to enhancing the ability to use data related to the systems.