FFS: Concepts & Preliminary Design of a FRP Lightweight Aerospace Structure under Consideration of Secondary Bonding Manufacturing

Abstract

Adhesive secondary bonding promises a considerable contribution to the weight and cost reduction in manufacturing of composite structures compared to riveted joints. In the present paper a 2x1 curved and tapered shell structure is considered, which currently uses metallic reinforcements riveted on a composite skin. The objective of the work is to achieve a design which allows the reduction of manufacturing costs and lead times by 30% (design to cost) by application of composite materials in combination with adhesive bonding. To achieve a composite-based design suitable for adhesive bonding, topological studies are performed. A material screening process is conducted to identify materials which allow the drape of the resulting structure. Afterwards, a pre-design workflow using local methods in the commercial software HyperSizer and global methods in the finite element code ANSYS is described for the sizing of the structure. Parametric studies are carried out and finally, structural modifications based on the sizing process are proposed and applied.