| Creator | M. E. Stone, Douglas Aircraft Company / McDonnell Douglas Corporation |
|---|---|
| Date | 1972 |
| Source type | Conference paper |
| Publication / holder | NASA Langley Research Center · Advanced Approaches to Fatigue Evaluation |
| Persistent ID | NTRS 19720022249 · Accession 72N29899 |
| Archive accessed | 22 September 2026 |
| Subjects | fatigue; fail-safe design; damage tolerance; crack arrest; residual strength; structural inspection; maintenance |
What this record is.
A period account of the DC-10 structural-reliability philosophy. It combines fatigue-resistant design with structural arrangements intended to arrest and control cracks within a reasonable service-inspection interval, followed by an inspection programme based on analysis and development testing.
Why it was retained.
Retained as a clear real-world precedent for damage-tolerant structure in which surviving a fault is explicitly linked to subsequent detection, inspection and maintenance. This is relevant to the Station concept that fracture-arrest zones and sacrificial load paths are temporary measures intended to create time for permanent rectification rather than permanent permission to remain damaged.
The source also provides a useful distinction between an initial failure and the interval before that failure becomes critical. In Station development this informs the working concept of an intervention interval: passive structure buys time, while an engineering organisation is expected to close the incident and restore expended redundancy.
Intervention interval is project terminology derived from the engineering relationship described here; it is not presented as a quoted DC-10 or NASA term. Scaling aircraft damage-tolerance principles to Station structures requires separate modelling.
Source locations
NASA Technical Reports Server record →Internal links
Referenced by: not yet assigned.
Related Archive records: 700.40:10:01 (space-vehicle fracture-control design methods).
Research notes / extracted claims: crack arrest within inspection interval; damage tolerance; residual strength; inspection closes the fail-safe loop; temporary post-failure service.