Direct maintenance cost prediction of civil aircraft

• Published in: Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology 2014-08, Vol.86 (5), p.406-414
• Main Authors: wang, huawei, Gao, Jun, Wu, Haiqiao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aeronautics; Aircraft; Aircraft design; Aircraft maintenance; Airlines; Cost analysis; Design; Design optimization; Design parameters; Fuzzy; Maintenance costs; Maintenance management; Mathematical models; Monitoring systems; Noise; Optimization; Parameters; Preventive maintenance; Software; Support vector machines
• ISSN: 1748-8842; 0002-2667; 1758-4213
• DOI: 10.1108/AEAT-11-2012-0209

Purpose Reducing direct maintenance cost of civil aircraft is one of important ways to improve economy. Direct maintenance cost (DMC) prediction can provide decision support for the optimization of the design parameters optimization to realize the objection in decreasing the maintenance cost, it also can improve the aircraft competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyzes some parameters comprehensively, which influence DMC in the civil aircraft's operational phase. Based on the analysis of the influential parameters and the characteristics of data in the period of civil aircraft’s designing period, the paper presents prediction support method based on fuzzy support vector machine and realizes quantitative forecast of DMC in the aircraft design phase. Findings The paper presents the process of DMC analysis and model in the aircraft design phase, the DMC prediction model is used to newly developed aircraft. Practical implications The numerical examples using B737NP fleet data in the paper have proved the effectiveness of the proposed method. Originality/value The paper establishes the prediction model of civil aircraft DMC based on fuzzy support vector machine. The model can handle fuzzy data and small sample data which contain noise. The results prove that the method can satisfy the demand of the real data in civil aircraft designing.