A Parametric Approach for Filling the Gap between Raw Data and Knowledge Based Engineering in the Aerospace Industry

In aerospace industry, the Aircraft Certification represents a multi-step process that validates the safety criteria imposed by responsible aviation authorities. Apart from ground and flight testing, certification reports arc the results of gathering knowledge-from several departments located in various geographical places. Such documents ensure the use of product knowledge among the lifecycle stages of an aircraft, serving as basis for manufacturing flaws concessions, repair procedures and retrofitting or layout adjustment tasks. While certification reports are generated by the extensive use of informational systems and specific software, knowledge based engineering procedures are not properly implemented, the re-use or update of engineering data requiring most of the times a backward approach. This aspect represents a challenge for the engineers involved, resulting in large amounts of time being spent, a lack of engineering data to be reused and a high margin of error that can occur due to the various data sources and revision files involved. The present work addresses these issues from an engineering based knowledge perspective, where report data is linked with its data sources, filling the gap between the departmental knowledge frontiers and allowing fast and accurate solutions to be achieved for a specific request. Implementation of the given concepts is proved by means of a conceptual case study regarding the re-engine load update for an aircraft pylon structure.