Advances in Computational Stability Analysis of Composite Aerospace Structures

Abstract

European aircraft industry demands for reduced development and operating costs, by 20% and 50% in the short and long term, respectively. Structural weight reduction by exploitation of structural reserves in composite aerospace structures contributes to this aim, however, it requires accurate and experimentally validated stability analysis of real structures under realistic loading conditions. This paper presents different advances from the area of computational stability analysis of composite aerospace structures which contribute to that field. For stringer stiffened panels main results of the finished EU project POSICOSS and the running follow-up EU project COCOMAT are given. Both projects deal with exploitation of reserves in primary fibre composite fuselage structures through an accurate and reliable simulation of postbuckling and collapse. Next, experimental validation of postbuckling analyses, development of two different fast tools for the postbuckling simulation and findings on the structural behaviour under dynamic loading is presented. Finally, for unstiffened cylindrical shells problems of a robust design method are given.