Structure And Structural Analysis Of An Aircraft Structures

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Structural Analysis of Aircraft Structures

Introduction

Aircrafts are usually built from components like wings, fuselages, tail units, engines, flight controls surfaces, stabilizers, main rotor assembly, tail rotor assembly and landing gears with a very few exceptions as per design. Each component has one or more categorical functions and must be designed to ascertain that it can carry out these functions safely. A fixed wing aircraft possesses wings, fuselages, engines, flight controls surfaces, stabilizers and landing gears and a rotary wing aircraft possess main rotor assembly, tail rotor assembly, fuselages, engines and landing gears. A good aircraft structure is one which provides all the strength and rigidity to sanction the aircraft to meet all its design requisites, but which weighs no more than indispensable.
The important factors to be take into consideration in aircraft structures are strength, weight and reliability which determine the requisites to be met by any material used in construction or repair of the aircraft. Airframes must be light in weight and strong. All materials used in construction of an aircraft must be reliable. Reliability minimizes the possibility of hazardous and unexpected failures. Many forces and structural stresses act on an aircraft when in flight and on ground. When it on ground, the force of gravity engenders weight, which is fortified by the landing gear. The landing gear absorbs the forces imposed on the aircraft by takeoffs and landings. Any maneuver that causes acceleration or deceleration during flight increases the forces and stresses on the wings and fuselage. Stresses that act on the wings, fuselage and landing gears are tension, compression, bending, shear and torsion. The stres...

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...) stress resultants is computed for a given shell gauge pressure which is generally 12 psig. For the fuselage, the longitudinal bending moment distributions are examined from three load cases. Loads are computed for a quasi-static pull-up maneuver, a landing maneuver, and travel over runway bumps. There are a variety of structural geometries available for the fuselage. There is a simply stiffened shell concept utilizing longitudinal frames. There are three concepts with Z-stiffened shells and longitudinal frames; one with structural material proportioned to give minimum weight in buckling, one with buckling efficiency compromised to give lighter weight in minimum gage, and one a buckling pressure compromise. Similarly, there are three truss-core sandwich designs, two for minimal weight in buckling with and without frames, and one a buckling-minimum gage compromise.

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