Statistical and comparative study on the deviation of the weight calculation for helicopters

Weight Engineering, also known as Mass Properties Engineering or Weight & Balance (W&B) refers to the prediction, determination, management and tracking of the weight, center of gravity, moments and products of inertia for a new product. These critical factors are important for determining the product’s performance and capabilities. In this context, the W&B division of Capgemini Engineering on behalf of Airbus Helicopters works, among other tasks, on the follow-up of the official helicopter weighings before the delivery of each machine to the customer. Following failure to update the mass databases of the optionals (shopping list of customisations on the machine) installed on the helicopters in recent years, this has led to a progressive deterioration in the accuracy of the data in possession and to the divergence of the difference between the calculated and weighed masses during official weighings. This work aims to find a possible solution to the problem by firstly highlighting a priority scale for the analysis of optionals through a statistical comparison between similar configurations of different weighed helicopters. Subsequently, an in-depth update of the W&B database is proposed following the first step and a subsequent "a posteriori" verification of the impact that updating the database may have on the calculations made in past years. This project is part of a broader work framework that covers all the ordinary and extraordinary tasks of the W&B team at Airbus Helicopters, which I was part of during my six-month final year degree internship at the company.