Composite Materials: Application Specifics for Transport Category Aircraft Wings

Abstract

Modern composite materials (CM) have wide applications in airframe structures of transport category aircraft. Their application has an important place in providing the minimum mass of an aircraft structure. The successful implementation of CM in airframe structures is directly related to the creation and improvement of computational methods for assessing their strength and stiffness. The most complex task of CM application is to provide the required level of strength and stiffness of separate structural elements and a whole unit. Currently, many methods have been developed to evaluate the strength of CM structural elements. Much attention is paid to the problems of fracture mechanics of CM. Numerous different criteria for fractures of a composite product have been developed, but the question of their unambiguous selection still remains open. In this situation, in order to make a reasonable choice of this or that criterion, additional computational-experimental research in relation to a specific structure is necessary. In this chapter, some aspects of strength determination of a CM aircraft wing have been analyzed. Some aspects of such evaluation have been considered.