The phrase "airframe life" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts related to aviation, specifically when discussing the lifespan or durability of an aircraft's structure.
Example: "The maintenance team conducted a thorough inspection to assess the airframe life of the aircraft before the next flight."
Alternatives: "aircraft lifespan" or "airframe durability".
The principles of aircraft structural integrity program (ASIP), damage-tolerant design and fracture control methodology are reviewed together with component life prediction and airframe life prediction in the context of fatigue testing, aircraft usage, and in-service nondestructive inspection/evaluation (NDI/NDE).
The contract for conversion was instead awarded to Hawker Siddeley, who produced a much simpler conversion than that planned by Handley Page, with the wingspan shortened to reduce wing bending stress and hence extend airframe life.
Although the LWF program called for a structural life of 4,000 flight hours, capable of achieving 7.33 g with 80% internal fuel; GD's engineers decided to design the F-16's airframe life for 8,000 hours and for 9-g maneuvers on full internal fuel.
These systems typically collect operational data for the calculation of the airframe's safe-life or crack inspection intervals.
Today the objective is to utilize an airframe to its maximum service life, a.k.a.a
Crenellation is a promising technique to effectively improve the fatigue life of metallic airframe structures.
This paper provides a brief review of a literature search on fatigue life of riveted airframe sheet metal joints and then a description of a test and analysis program conducted for common riveted joints used in rotorcraft airframe structures.
One of the most important variables in this characterization is fatigue behavior due to the cyclic loads during the life of an airframe.
Since the life of an airframe is determined by the growth of the fastest (lead) crack/delamination/disbond any analysis tool developed for a composite/bonded airframe requires the ability to predict the both the scatter in delamination/disbond growth and thereby the growth of the lead delamination/disbond in the airframe.
Traditionally, the results from the fatigue test are scaled by empirical scatter factors to derive a safe economic life of the airframe aligned to an acceptable probability of structural failure.
The USAF report on the risk analysis of aging aircraft fleets notes that the operational life of individual airframes is seldom equal to the design life of the fleet and that the life of an aircraft fleet tends to be determined more by its inherent operational capability and maintenance costs rather than by the number of flight hours specified at the design stage.
