Point of Maintenance Tool for 3D Collection of Corrosion Data

Mercer Engineering Research Center (MERC) has developed a point of maintenance tool for 3D collection of detailed aircraft corrosion data.  Maintenance personnel use a computer with pre-loaded work cards to enter corrosion findings at the time of inspection.  The software interfaces with USAF maintenance databases to upload findings.  The tool passes the findings into legacy maintenance databases for analysis.  Photographs of the corroded part are taken via the tablet computer or an external camera.  The tool provides standardized language for reporting via drop down menus as well as automatically populating data often left out, or incorrectly entered by maintainers, such as accurate work unit codes (WUC), part numbers (PN), and size and location of corrosion.  The tool provides an interactive 3D model of the aircraft with the capability to point and click to accurately select any part.  The maintainer easily indicates the location and extent of corrosion on the graphics or by text entry.  The initial platform to utilize this tool is the C-130 aircraft.  The detailed information collected is stored in a government database for further analyses, such as assessment of the cost of corrosion, trending of data for evaluation of corrosion preventive compounds (CPCs), and consideration of design improvements.