A Framework to Implement Probabilistic Fatigue Design of Safe-Life Components

Safety-critical components, such as aircraft landing gear, are designed using the ‘safe-life’ fatigue analysis process. Variability exists within materials data, loads data and component dimensions and is currently mitigated using safety factors. Probabilistic approaches to safe-life fatigue design have been proposed to better represent this variability. However, challenges currently exist that prevent the wider utilisation of a probabilistic approach. This paper presents a framework that aims to overcome these challenges. The statistical characterisation, probabilistic, surrogate modelling and sensitivity analysis methods required to implement the framework are introduced. Finally, a discussion of how recent advances within aerospace fatigue design, such as ‘big-data’, can be used to support a probabilistic framework is presented.