Design, Analysis, Fabrication and Testing of Grid-Stiffened for Fuselage Applications

Design, Analysis, Fabrication and Testing of Grid-Stiffened for Fuselage Applications

Shroff, S.

Benedictus, R. (promotor)

Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace Structures and Computational Mechanics

2014-12-09

The application of composites in aircraft structures has grown significantly in the past decade, and an increase in this growth in application has recently been achieved in fuselage designs for large civil aircraft such as the Boeing B787 and the Airbus A350. In conventional design philosophies, weight savings is the primary objective on a part-by-part basis, but, with composite constructions, the design philosophies have had to be altered and a direct replacement of a metal with a composite material may not be the most efficient design option. In the future, composite constructions for aircraft fuselage can be made frameless, or at least a reduced number of frames, while making the structure intrinsically damage tolerant owing to its design. One of the front runners in cylindrical stiffened shells for applications that undergo pressurization and therefore, in-plane bi-axial stresses, is the grid-stiffened or lattice structure. A successful application of such structures is the rocket insterstages used in Proton and Delta rockets. A primary advantage of the grid-stiffened construction is the possibility of a long uninterrupted fuselage, which leads to a simple, low-part number, and low-cost design; but the increased weight savings and reduced complexity come with a price: unknown failure modes and the difficulty of joining members to members in an airframe. These challenges are dealt with here.

grid stiffened
composite fuselage
composite joint
progressive damage

https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:9993bf69-5a8d-4b50-816e-f685185cea64

9789462594791

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

(c) 2014 Shroff, S.