1

AbstractCatastrophic accidents have frequently

occurred in the operation of aircraft. Meanwhile aircraft
passengers are always dealt with no choice, but accept
whatever condition of aircraft they are flying. Such
accidents are caused by some factors related to how the
aircraft was designed, manufactured and maintained.
Corrosion of aircraft structural parts is more probable
failure that contributes accident. In design stage
aluminum alloys is selected due to its best strength to
weight ratio whereas its resistance to corrosion is less
decisive factor. In manufacturing stage key success factor
is seen on productivity performance instead of building
corrosion free parts which may lower the production rate.
This paper is aimed to study corrosion failure during
service and maintenance and preventing further corrosion
of aircraft structural parts. Failure Mode and Effect
Analysis (FMEA) was chosen to achieve the
effectiveness of developing methodology for preventing
failure. For each potential failure that can lead to
accidents of interest, FMEA can evaluate the range of
possible effects; ways in which the failure mode can
occur; ways in which the failure mode can be detected
and isolated and safeguards that are in place to protect
against accidents resulting from the failure mode.
I. INTRODUCTION
n Aloha Boeing 737 aircraft, evidence was found of
multiple site fatigue damage leading to structural
failure and corrosion-accelerated fatigue of the fuselage
skin panel [1].Another report [2] indicates that failures
caused by incorrect material selection where SCC occupy
35 % of primary causes of failure.
A study by Boeing [3] determined the primary cause of
Airline hull loss accidents (worldwide commercial jet
fleet), from 1996 through 2005, to be:
55%
17%
13%
7%
5% 3%
Flight Crew error Mechanical failure Weather
Misc. ATC Maintenance
Figure.1. Causes of aircraft accident
There are two types of the mechanical failures that cause
the aircraft accidents, namely fatigue failure and
corrosion failure. Fatigue failure on aircraft components
can be predicted since serial of testing of aircraft
prototype at design stage and certification [4] while
corrosion failure on aircraft components may not be
predicted and remote likelihood of detection, especially
when corrosion failure rate of aircraft components is not
only influenced by corrosive medium but also
accelerated by static and cyclic load. The traditional
method used for preventing corrosion failures as a crack
of an aircraft part is to make an investigation and find the
cause and repair or replace that defective part. This
solves the problem but it does not always prevent future
failures. We need lost of major portion of upper fuselage
near the front of the plane due to a systematic method to
avoid future corrosion problems. Solving similar failure
problems is important in many industries as in design,
production and maintenance of aircrafts. The designers
want to prevent failures by analyzing the systems before
production and getting a feedback from accidents. This is
well known in the airline industry, where every accident
is analyzed to find the cause and after each accident a
number of changes in the design are suggested.
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) was chosen
for this analysis and prevention from corrosion of
structural parts. A failure mode and effect and analysis
(FMEA) as described in US MIL STD 1629 (1980) and
Moubray [5] are intended to recognize and evaluate the
potential failures of a product or process and find its
effects.
It will identify actions that can be taken to prevent
failures by eliminating or reducing the risk. The concept
of FMEA is nothing new. Designers, manufacturing and
maintenance personnel have always thought of failure
modes and how to prevent them. In aircraft design and
manufacturing we have many rules and guides of how to
build an aircraft without future failure, but in most cases
we do not look at the effect of the failure. The FMEA
method uses a more systematic approach.
II. CORROSION MECHANISM
For the purpose of this study, electrochemical corrosion
is the most important classification of corrosion. Four
conditions must exist before electrochemical corrosion
can proceed: (1) there must be something that corrodes
or free its electrons (the metal anode), (2) there must be a
cathode to gain electrons, (3) there must be continuous
Failure Analysis and Prevention for Corrosion of Aircraft
Structural Parts: A Wing Study
Machmud Syakir, Mohd Dali B. Isa
Universiti Kuala Lumpur (Malaysian Institute of Aviation Technology)
I
2
conductive liquid path (electrolyte, usually moisture,
condensate and salt or other contaminations) to transfer
charged ions, and (4) there must be a conductor to carry
the flow of electrons from the anode to the cathode [10].
This conductor is usually in the form of metal-to-metal
contact such as bolted or riveted joints between wing
skin and stringers and center wing fitting to fuselage, etc.
The elimination of any one of the four conditions will
stop corrosion. An unbroken coating on the surface of
the metal will prevent the electrolyte from connecting the
cathode to anode so that current cannot flow. Therefore,
no corrosion will occur as long as the coating is
unbroken.
Figure.2. Scheme of electrochemical corrosion
model
Protective coatings will be broken if there is continuous
contacts of one or more moving parts due to mechanical
loads.
For deducing expression for corrosion rate in reference
system coordinates of the workpiece-anode, let us
consider a small element of anodic surface with area
AA,through which anode current AI is flowing as shown
in Fig.2. In this process part of the electric charge gets
transferred from the anode by metal cations going to
conductive moisture; which is important in dissolution,
and part of the anions evolves at the anode (e.g. oxide,
chloride ions etc.) and is a side effect.
The ratio of current AI+ applied which is responsible for
metal corrosion to current generated by Standard Electro
Motive Force (E
o
volt), AI is named as current efficiency
of anodic dissolution, where metal M dissolved to ion
M
n+
according the following electrochemical reaction:
M M
+n
+ ne
-1
,
where n is the number of electrons transferred from
anode to cathode.
( ) 1 ...... ..........
I
I
A
+ A
= q
It is often convenient to express the current efficiency in
terms of a percentage ratio.
Current efficiency q depends greatly on the material of
the workpiece, type of corrosive medium (rain water,
dissolved chloride, electrolyte, moisture or condensate),
and stress load (tension, torsion, shear, flexure, impact
and fatigue) to joints.
For an efficiency of 100%, the total current generated by
electro motive force is carried by ions of dissolved metal
to become corrosion product. For zero efficiency, the
current passes without metal corrosion. In many of
references, the current efficiency is defined as the ratio of
the observed mass change to the theoretical one
predicted from Faradays laws, with assumption of 100%
current efficiency of the anodic dissolution or corrosion
process.
In a case when material removal is purely by
electrochemical processes, i.e. there is no mechanical
material removal such as hydrodynamic erosion, fretting
corrosion or stress corrosion cracking, the corrosion rate
can be obtained from Faradays I Law.
According to I law of Faraday, the mass of metal
removed Am i.e. mass of metal ions) corresponding to
current AI
+
during time At (i.e. to electric chargeAI+At) is
given by:
) 2 .....( .......... t I k m A A = A
+
where k is the electrochemical equivalent of the
workpiece material, which is equals mass of ions
carrying unit electric charge of 1 coulomb (i.e. 1 Amp-
sec). On the basis of Faradays II Law, the
electrochemical equivalent for corrosion reaction:
M M
+n
+ ne
-1
,
is given by
) 3 ......( ..........
nF
A
k =
where: A is atomic weight of the metal M, and F is
Faradays constant (96500 C). Combination of atomic
weight of reacting ions and valence n, expressed by the
quantity A/n being the weight equivalent of an metal
atom.
For example, iron has an atomic weight of A=55.85. In its
divalent form (n=2) this metal has an electrochemical
equivalent k=2910-5g/Amp-sec; trivalent iron (n = 3)
has k=1910-5 g/Amp-sec. If an alloy consist of i
elements such that each element accounts for a fraction z
i
of the total, and it is postulated that each element
dissolves independently and simultaneously with the
others, the electrochemical equivalent of alloy may be
found by the equation:
) 4 ...( ..........
1

=
i
i i
A
z n
F
k
Taking the AI+ from Eqn.1, and expressing dissolved
mass Am in terms of thickness of material layer Ah
removed from surface element AA, Eqn.2 is rewritten
as:
) 5 .........( t I k A h A A = A A q
or,
) 6 .........( t
A
I k
h
m
A
A
A
= A

q
3
where:
m
is density of metal part.
Taking the limit as all differential quantities approach
zero, by the definition of a derivative, the required
relation for velocity of corrosion can be obtained as
follows:
) 7 .....( ..........
a
m
n
i
k
V

q =
or
) 8 .........( ..........
a v n
i K V =
where:
) 9 ..( ..........
0
A
I
i
Lim
A
a
A
A
=
A
is current density on the anodic part [6].
The term K
v
= qk/ is known as the coefficient of
electrochemical corrosion susceptibility, and is equal to
the volume of material dissolved from the anodic part per
unit electrical charge.
The coefficient K
v
can only be determined
experimentally, by various methods. The values of K
v
for
different metals are given in Tables 1. Table 1 show that
among aluminum alloys observed 2017 T3 and 7075 T6
has the greatest susceptibility to corrosion.
Table 1. Corrosion susceptibility of aluminum alloys,
K
v
Metal
aluminu
m
Electrochemica
l Equivalent, k
(g/A-s) 10
-7
Density
(g/cm
3
)
KV at current
efficiency 100%
(=1) (mm
3
/Am-
min)
1050 9.5 2.71 2.06
2024-0 9.5 2.77 2.05
2024-T3 9.5 2.77 2.06
2024-T6 9.6 2.77 2.06
2017-T4 9.4 2.79 2.08
2014-T3 9.4 2.79 2.03
7075-T6 9.7 2.80 2.07
7075-
T73 9.7 2.80 2.07
6061-0 8.9 2.70 1.97
6061-T4 8.9 2.70 1.97
6061-T6 8.9 2.70 1.97
III. AIRCRAFT AS A SYSTEM FMEA
There are four types of FMEA that industry can apply.
This includes design, process, system and service FMEA.
The FMEA will typically begin with a number of block
diagrams. The purpose is to understand the logic in the
system. In traditional approach we look at corrosion
problems in aircraft construction as a whole and do not
look at the wing or fuselage sub system installation.
But to prevent damage from wing sub-systems it is
important to go to more detail sources of corrosion
failure and also look at type of joints.
The main structure of an aircraft is constructed on the
basis of parent and children relationship between its
structural components (children) and full aircraft body
(parent) as shown in Figure.3.
Figure.3. Aircraft as a system
Our scope of study emphasized on the wing (sub system)
as one of primary structures of aircraft since the wing
will carry all weight of aircraft. As shown in figure 1
potential failure modes of the wing varies since stress
corrosion cracking (SCC) on the wing spar, fretting
corrosion on control surfaces hinge, crevice corrosion
on lap joints of wing skin to stringers, microbial
corrosion in fuel tank, etc.
On the inner surface we can get entrapped moisture in
faying surfaces; we are also able to see it and make
repairs to prevent further corrosion.
The outer surface is only interesting, if' the raining water
moves into the structure. The Structural Significance
Significance Item (SSI) listed in Table 2 is determined
by the value of K
v
. Table 2 identify parts with 7000
series of aluminum are the most susceptible to corrosion
failures
Table 2. Structural Significance Item (SSI)
Part Name Material and
Temper
K
V
at current
efficiency 100%
(=1) (mm
3
/A-min)
Floor beam 7075 T3511 2.08
Lower Chord and
Stiffener
7075 T6 2.08
Upper skin, Lower
skin, Trailing edges
and stringers
2024 T3 2-07
Front spar web and
spar
7075 T3511 2-08
Ram Air Duct 2017 T6 2.08
Pressure deck, Flap
track and Wing box
7075 T3511 2-08
Empennage Fuselage Landing
gear
Aircraft
Structure
NOTE:
1)Winglet
2)Low Speed Aileron
3)High Speed Aileron
4)Flap track fairing
5)Kruger flaps
11
6)Slats
7)Three slotted inner flaps
8)Three slotted outer flaps
9)Spoilers
10) Spoilers-Air brakes
4
IV. SYSTEM FMEA MODEL
Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a classical system
safety analysis technique which is currently widely used in the
automotive, aerospace and other safety critical industries. In the
process of an FMEA, analysts compile lists of component failure
modes and try to infer the effects of those failure modes on the system.
Figure.4. System FMEA Model
IV.1 Severity (S)
System FMEA models as figure.4 typically assist analysts in
understanding how the local effects of component failures propagate
through complex architecture [9] and ultimately cause hazardous
effects at system level. In this model there are chances to continually
improve the aircraft structural parts by minimizing the risk (RPN).
Severity (S) is an assessment of the seriousness of the effect of the
potential failure mode. Severity applies to the effect only. A reduction
in severity ranking index can be effected through a process change.
Severity is estimated on a 1 to 10 scale.
Table 3. Effects of Severity (S)
Severity Effect of Severity Rank
Very
hazardous
Potential failure mode
affects flight safety with
or without warning.
9-10
High Fail safe components with
loss of secondary and
primary function.
7-8
Moderate Repairable components
having corrosion failure.
5-6
Low Repairable components
having initial corrosion
3-4
Very
Minor
Unclean exterior aircraft 1-2
IV.2 Occurrence
Occurrence is the likelihood that a specific cause will
occur. The likelihood of occurrence ranking number has
a meaning rather than a value. Removing one or more of
the causes of the failure mode through a design or
process change is the only way a reduction in the
occurrence ranking can be effected. The likelihood of
occurrence of potential failure cause is estimated on a
1 to 10 scale
Table 4. Effects of Occurrence (O)
Probability of Failure Possible
Failure Rates
Rank
Very High: Failure is
almost inevitable
1 in 2 or 3 9-10
High: Repeated
Failures
1 in 8 to 20 7-8
1 in 80-400 5-6 Moderate:
Occasional failures
1 in 2000-
15,000
3-4
Low: Relatively few
failures or no failures
1 in
1,500,000
1-2
IV.3 Detection
Detection (D) is an assessment of the ability of current
aircraft maintenance system to detect a potential cause or
the ability of the proposed action current aircraft
maintenance systems to detect the subsequent failure
mode, before the component, subsystem, or system is
released for service
Table 5. Effect of Detection (D)
Detection Likelihood of Detection Ranking
Absolute
Uncertainty
System can not detect a
potential cause and
subsequent failure mode
9-10
Very Remote Very remote chance for
system to detect a potential
cause and subsequent failure
mode.
7-8
Remote Remote chance the system
will detect a potential
cause/me and subsequent
failure mode.
5-6
Very Low Very low chance the system
will detect a potential cause
and subsequent
3-4
Absolute
certainty
High chance the system will
detect a potential cause and
subsequent failure mode.
1-2
In order to achieve a lower ranking, generally the
planned aircraft maintenance system has to be improved.
Detection is estimated on a 1 to 10 scale.
IV.5 Traditional RPN
A traditional FMEA uses RPN to assess risk in three
categories: Occurrence (O), Severity (S), and Detection
(D). The rating is scaled from 1 to 10 for each category.
Taking the product of these three indices generates the
RPN. RPN only defines priority, no specific value is
required, but it can be set as a target value [7], for
example RPN<125 as a target value. When the RPN at
125 is achieved, effort to reduce the risk priority number
must be continuously performed by looking at every
factor Occurrence (O), Severity (S) and Detection (D).
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5
Table 6. Current FMEA Evaluation
Current RPN
(5)
Part Name
(1)
Functions
(2)
Potential Failure
Modes
(3)
Potential
Causes of
failure
(4)
S
E
V
,
S
O
C
C
,
O
D
E
T
,
D
R
P
N
=
S
x
O
x
D
Current
Control
(6)
Wing flap assy Support highest lift
during takeoff
Fretting corrosion on
hinge joint
insufficient lubrication 9 5 6 270 None
Wing center
assy
Tension load
resistance on fitting
Floor beam
Fail to support next
higher assy
Pitting corrosion on lower
skin
8 5 3 120 Visual Inspection
Spar web Prevent lower skin
buckles
Fail to support the load SCC on Stiffener and clips 8 6 8 384 Visual Inspection
Upper and
Lower skin
For bending
resistance
Buckle between
stringers
Missed rivet due to
crevice corrosion
4 5 4 80 Visual Inspection
Sloping
Pressure Deck
Carry tension, and
shear load
Reduced fail safe
capability of floor
beam corrosion
Trapped moisture on
longitudinal floor beam
7 7 6 294 Visual Inspection
Trailing Edge
Hinge joint
Resistance to
friction drag and
shear stress
Affect reducing
aerodynamic lift
Stress Corrosion Cracking
on fwd joint of flap track
8 6 7 336 Visual Inspection
Wing box Rigidity against
compression &
tension load
Reduced fail safe
capability of stiffeners
Microbial corrosion on
lower skin and its assy
members
8 6 4 192 Visual Inspection
Table 7. FMEA Evaluation After Recommended Action
Improved RPN
(9)
Recommended Action
(7)
Revised
Control Method
(8)
S
E
V
,
S
O
C
C
,
O
D
E
T
,
D
R
P
N
=
S
x
O
x
D
Responsible
Team members
(10)
More frequent lubrication than specified in Service
Bulletins
Functional check after repair 5 4 3 60 Technician
Perform frequent aircraft cleaning interval Liquid Penetrant Inspection 5 5 3 75 Mechanic
Cold work of holes for Rivbolt assembly Liquid Penetrant Inspection 5 5 8 200 Mechanic
Repair in according to Service Bulletin Visual Inspection 4 5 4 80 Mechanic
Sealant application and complete cure Visual & leak inspection 6 6 5 180 Mechanic
Redesign by added shot peen process Change proposal to OEM 5 5 7 175 Maintenance Engineer
Clean fungus on the bottom of the tank. Add fuel
with biocide
Frequent interval of checking fuel tank
Inspect tank more frequently
5 5 4 100 Mechanic
VI.6 Comparison of RPN
Failure scenarios were investigated for the 7 different wing
components that involve SSIs (Table 2). Among the
components spar web is the highest risk of corrosion failure
with its RPN 384. It was detected that the main contributor
to failures are crevice corrosion on stiffeners and clips. Root
cause analysis from maintenance log book shows presence
of sealant damage on the joint that enable moisture
entrapped under faying surfaces.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
S
p
a
r
w
e
b
T
r
a
il
i
n
g
E
d
g
e
S
l
o
p
i
n
g
P
r
e
s
s
.
.
.
W
i
n
g
f
l
a
p
a
s
s
y
W
i
n
g
b
o
x
W
i
n
g
c
e
n
t
e
r
a
s
s
y
U
p
p
e
r
a
n
d
L
o
.
.
.
Figure.5. Risk Priority Number (RPN)
prior recommended action
R
P
N
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6
However, by improving the process through additional
cold work on rivbolt holes of stiffener joint the RPN
of the spar web decrease from 384 to 200. RPN 200 is
still considered hazardous because aircraft structural
part requires level of risk below RPN 125.
0
50
100
150
200
250
S
p
a
r
w
e
b
S
l
o
p
i
n
g
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
.
.
.
T
r
a
il
i
n
g
E
d
g
e
W
i
n
g
b
o
x
U
p
p
e
r
a
n
d
L
o
w
e
.
.
.
W
i
n
g
c
e
n
t
e
r
a
s
s
y
W
i
n
g
f
l
a
p
a
s
s
y
Figure.6. Risk Priority Number (RPN)
after recommended action
Figure.6 shows significant change of reducing the risk
of corrosion failure where spar web and sloping
pressure deck place first and second highest risk.
Other components are considered very low risk of
corrosion failure because their RPNs are below 125
[7].
V.CONCLUSION
Including corrosion prevention method into close loop
system FMEA model as in Figure.4 is an efficient way to
prevent corrosion of aircraft structural part. It is proven that
a close loop system FMEA presented in this paper possibly
reduce the risk of corrosion failure mode to RPN<125. The
proposed approach also integrates Corrosion failure analysis
method and system FMEA. As a result, we can identify
robustness critical aircraft component and parts, rank of risk
and prioritize possible causes, and develop preventive
actions.
However, the issue of using these methods in the proposed
framework is not settled by merely outline such agendas.
Many of the steps require research and effort to show their
feasibility. This opens directions for future work.
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R
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