Initial Design of Crashworthy Composite Structures

Abstract

At the initial phase of the design process, only static and equivalent static loads are considered in the structural layout of an aircraft composite fuselage.Therefore, the dynamic structural behaviour of a composite fuselage under crash load conditions is an inappropriate result of static structural layout. This thesis provides a novel method based on the intelligent application of structural modelling and optimization techniques to overcome this lacking feature in the design process. Therein, the key innovation is to consider static and crash loads simultaneously at the initial phase of composite design. The novel method is based on evolutionary computation techniques applied on structural simulation in order to include energy absorption or deformation work characteristics immanent to composite materials and composite design within a multi-objective optimization approach foran overall system response. The proposed method includes the systematic transfer of design information from the intitial design phase to the preliminary design. Based on the systematic transfer, the prototypical development of an adaptive deformation element for the purpose of deformation control and energy absoprtion is conducted.