Achievements in the buckling of thin-walled composite launcher structures

Achievements in the buckling of thin-walled composite launcher structures

Degenhardt, Richard (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR))
Franzoni, Felipe (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR))
Castro, Saullo G.P. (TU Delft Aerospace Structures & Computational Mechanics)

2021

For most structural parts of real launcher structures buckling is the critical design criterion. Due to the high imperfection sensitivity of these structures and to the unknown geometric imperfections during the design phase, it is still today a challenge to predict a reliable design buckling load and to experimentally and non-destructively evaluate the load carrying capacity of real structures. The space industry is looking for new and alternative less-conservative design methods, and non-destructive experimental strategies. This paper presents a summary of different examples to numerically and experimentally predict the buckling load of imperfection sensitive structures. The numerical strategies herein covered are based on the fast Ritz-method, developed for conical and cylindrical structures applicable for linear and non-linear buckling, and static calculations. The experimental examples are all based on the non-destructive buckling estimation enabled by means of the Vibration Correlation Technique (VCT). An overview of experiments on different types of cylindrical shells (unstiffened, stringer-stiffened and grid) with different materials (composite and metallic) and for different load cases and their combination (axial compression, internal pressure and bending) is presented. The examples are on academic laboratory level and on qualification tests of real full-scale space structures.

Buckling
Composite structures
Experiments
Imperfection
Ritz method
Stability
Vibration Correlation Technique

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b1d3155b-8dc4-44b6-8e39-fc1386c663f8

International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences

9783932182914

32nd Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, ICAS 2021

32nd Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, ICAS 2021, 2021-09-06 → 2021-09-10, Shanghai, China

32nd Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, ICAS 2021

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2021 Richard Degenhardt, Felipe Franzoni, Saullo G.P. Castro