F-35 Full Scale Durability Modeling and Test

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program includes three aircraft variants, one of which has been designed and built according to US Air Force requirements, and the other two of which have been designed and built according to US Navy requirements. For all three variants, a system design and development (SDD) configuration aircraft is being subjected to a full-scale durability (FSD) test. In each case, the complete airframe is being subjected to two lifetimes of 'severe' design spectrum loading, with maneuver, catapults/arrestments (carrier variant only) and buffet loads applied as separate, alternating 1000 flight hour blocks during the major test sequence. For the airframe tests, the buffet loads are applied quasi-statically; for the separate vertical tail component tests, they are applied dynamically. In addition, tests of doors and attachments (local tests) are conducted when the full airframe test is down for inspections (as required, for example, between the first and second lifetimes). In this paper, we describe the manner in which the airframe tests were designed, including fatigue spectrum development and test adequacy analyses. In addition, we provide a summary of the test findings to date, along with a description of the analytical simulation for a typical finding. The paper includes an analysis vs test correlation summary that provides an indication of the validity of the fatigue crack initiation (FCI) and fatigue crack growth (FCG) analysis methods used to design the aircraft.