A deployment of prognostics to optimize aircraft maintenance - A literature review

Abstract

Historic records show that the cost of operating and supporting an aircraft may exceed the initial purchase price as much as ten times. Maintenance, repair and overhaul activities represent around 10-15% of an airlines annual operational costs. Therefore, optimization of maintenance operations to minimize cost is extremely important for airlines in order to stay competitive. Prognostics, a process to predict remaining useful life of systems and/or components suffering from aging or degradation, has been recognized as one of the revolutionary disciplines that can improve efficiency of aircraft operations and optimize aircraft maintenance. This study focuses on literature that has used prognostics to optimize aircraft maintenance and identifies research gaps for further optimization of aircraft maintenance in commercial aviation. In this paper, the origin and development of prognostics is firstly introduced. Thereafter, the state of art of aircraft maintenance is reviewed. Next, the applicability of prognostics to optimize aircraft maintenance is explained, reviewed, and potential challenges and opportunities are explored. Finally, the state-of-the-art of prognostics in aircraft maintenance is discussed and research gaps are identified in perspective of the deployment of prognostics to optimize aircraft maintenance.