Fast Analysis Tools for Concurrent/Integrated Engineering of Composite Airframe Structures

Abstract

The terms ´Right First Time´ and ´First Right Time´ stand for the actual demands to the product development process, and they characterise Concurrent/Integrated Engineering as development procedure: The right design has to be obtained already at the first time when a prototype is manufactured, and the duration of the whole process has to be minimised, in order to enable the user to serve the market as first supplier at right time. Hence a basic prior condition for Concurrent/Integrated Engineering is the availability of procedures for structural analysis, which are as fast as required for the former conceptual phase and, simultaneously, as precise as for the former detailed phase of the design process. General Purpose Program Systems are ready for proof purposes, however, they are usually not quick enough for the sake of design; there is a strong need for new, efficient structural analysis methods. For that purpose, at the Institute of Structural Mechanics of DLR procedures for fiber composite airframe structures are under development, which enable fast and precise analysis of damage behavior, 3D temperature distributions, 3D stress distribution and bucklung behavior. Concepts and procedures for these analyses and their verifications by experiments will be presented.