Sound Engineering

Although structural failures in flight are quite rare, failures in test are still fairly common, and have seemingly increased in recent years. Such failures typically lead to costly and time-consuming repairs, redesigns, and retests—but designers can minimize these problems by following sound engineering principles. In particular, Aerospace recommends that structural designers:

• anticipate future program needs and design the structure and qualification test in a robust manner that will minimize the need for redesign and retesting;
• fully coordinate the design and test planning activities among the various disciplines;
• provide adequate time in the development phase to identify and correct manufacturing problems before the qualification article is built;
• carry appropriate margins and uncertainty factors in preliminary loads and environmental predictions;
• fully document the analysis and provide adequate time for review prior to testing (because simplified assumptions are easily forgotten);
• pay close attention to changes in requirements, design, or manufacturing processes made after qualification and carefully review the need to retest.

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