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Damage Tolerance
From SKYbrary Wiki
| Article Information | ||
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| Category: | Airworthiness | 
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| Content source: | SKYbrary | 
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| Content control: | EUROCONTROL | 
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Definition
Damage tolerance, or safety by inspection, was developed as a design philosophy in the 1970s as an improvement on the fail-safe principle for structural deterioration.
The damage tolerance approach is based on the principle that while cracks due to fatigue and corrosion will develop in the aircraft structure, the process can be understood and controlled. A key element is the development of a comprehensive programme of inspections to detect cracks before they can affect flight safety. That is, damage tolerant structures are designed to sustain cracks without catastrophic failure until the damage is detected in scheduled inspections and the damaged part is repaired or replaced.