Life Estimation of a Helicopter Main Rotor Shaft Based on Standard FAA Spectrum

This paper presents an approach for life estimation of helicopter main rotor shaft based on the standard Federation aviation administration (FAA) spectrum. According to Federation aviation regulation (FAR), the safe life approach has been employed in order to estimate the shaft life. Since the loading of the shaft is non-proportional and the material ductility is low, Findley’s critical plane criterion has been applied. In order to apply Findley’s criterion, an individual code was developed using ANSYS Parametric Design Language facilities. The code uses the minimum circumscribed circle approach to calculate the amplitude of shear stress and finds the critical plane. The lives of the shaft for the most severe maneuvers and for the standard FAA spectrum were found to be 76 and 1090 flight hours respectively. The fatigue sensitivity chart has been plotted and the effect of replacing another material with the shaft material on the life of shaft has been studied. To validate the result, the life of the shaft in the critical node has been calculated according to federal administration aviation AC 27-1B. Good agreement with these two results was observed.