A Building Block Approach to Sustainment and Durability Assessment: Experiment and Analysis

USAF MIL-STD 1530D states that the design and certification approval of military aircraft requires analytical tools that are capable of modeling crack growth, and that the role of testing is to validate or correct the durability and damage tolerance analyses. As such analysis and experimental testing are intimately interconnected. As a result this article presents a methodology for performing the necessary experimental testing and analyses/assessments in a mutually consistent fashion, and in a fashion that is consistent with the mandated building block approach delineated in the US Joint Services Structural Guidelines JSSG2006, USAF MIL-STD-1530D, and NASA Handbook NASA-HDBK-5010.