Design and Analysis of Composite Panels

Abstract

European aircraft industry demands for reduced development and operating costs, by 20% and 50% in the short and long term, respectively. Contributions to this aim are provided by the completed project POSICOSS (5thFP) and the running follow-up project COCOMAT (6thFP), both supported by the European Commission. As an important contribution to cost reduction a decrease in structural weight can be reached by exploiting considerable reserves in primary fibre composite fuselage structures through an accurate and reliable simulation of postbuckling up to collapse. The POSICOSS team developed fast procedures for postbuckling analysis of stiffened fibre composite panels, created comprehensive experimental data bases and derived design guidelines. COCOMAT builds up on the POSICOSS results and considers in addition the simulation of collapse by taking degradation into account. The results comprise an extended experimental data base, degradation models, improved certification and design tools as well as design guidelines. The projects POSICOSS and COCOMAT develop improved tools which are validated by experimental results obtained during the projects. Because the new tools must consider a wide range of different aspects a lot of different structures had to be tested. These structures were designed under different design objectives. For the design process the consortium applied already available simulation tools and brought in their own design experience. This paper deals with the design process within both projects and the analysis procedure applied within this task. It focuses on the experience of DLR on the design and analysis of stringer stiffened CFRP panels gained in the frame of these projects.