EAGLE/DTA: A Life Cycle Cost Model for Damage Tolerance Assessment

The U.S. Air Force and Pratt & Whitney Aircraft are currently engaged in developing technology to minimize low-cycle fatigue maintenance requirements in future gas turbine engines. The Life Cycle Cost/Damage Tolerance Assessment (LCC/DTA) program is directed toward furthering technology development in two important areas that relate to the overall life cycle cost of advanced Air Force weapon systems: life cycle cost modeling and analysis, and damage tolerance design (DTD). A major goal of the LCC/DTA program is to establish hot-section disk design criteria specifying acceptable levels for life and maintenance actions based on minimum life cycle cost. This paper discusses the methodology developed to evaluate the weapon system LCC impact of designing to damage tolerance criteria.