A GUI Based Pressure Control System for Composite Aircraft Structural Tests using Compact Reconfigurable Input-Output (cRIO) & LabVIEW

Abstract

An aircraft fuel system enables the fuel to be loaded, stored, managed and delivered to the engine of an aircraft. In a modern aircraft, the fuel systems are likely to consist of multiple fuel tanks, which may be located in the wing or fuselage (or both). These tanks should withstand the fuel pressure acting on the walls of the tank due to the maneuvers, influence of aerodynamic force and centrifugal force on aircrafts. Hence, the tanks should be analyzed for vibrations of random loads. This paper proposes the structural analysis of aircraft fuel tank by applying dynamic air pressure levels instead of actual fuel pressure. The pressure levels are calculated by considering the bank angles from 0 to 50 degrees. The structural life cycle of aircraft fuel tank is evaluated at ground level by applying dynamic pressure  to analyze strength and dynamic characteristics of the tank and to optimize if required. Thus, the system requires the necessary instrumentation and software for control and monitoring. Instrumentation consisting of cRIO, Eurotherm 2404 controller and LabVIEW as software has to take care of applying pressure, record the required parameters, ensure safety, and report the errors during the test. This test has to run continuously for 24x7 without the human intervention. During this, it also records the pressure values into a file & backs up to network storage. The software also takes care of the necessary safety mechanism. This software developed is tested in the laboratory environment & found to be working as per the requirement