Numerical and Experimental Investigation on the Structural Behaviour of a Horizontal Stabilizer under Critical Aerodynamic Loading Conditions

Abstract

The aim of the proposed research activity is to investigate the mechanical behaviour of a part of aerospace horizontal stabilizer, made of composite materials and undergoing static loads. The prototype design and manufacturing phases have been carried out in the framework of this research activity. The structural components of such stabilizer are made of composite sandwich panels (HTA 5131/RTM 6) with honeycomb core (HRH-10-1/8-4.0); the sandwich skins have been made by means of Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) process. In order to assess the mechanical strength of this stabilizer, experimental tests have been performed. In particular, the most critical inflight recorded aerodynamic load has been experimentally reproduced and applied on the stabilizer. A numerical model, based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) and aimed at reducing the experimental effort, has been preliminarily developed to calibrate amplitude, direction, and distribution of an equivalent and simpler load vector to be used in the experimental test. The FEM analysis, performed by using NASTRAN code, has allowed modelling the skins of the composite sandwich plates by definition of material properties and stack orientation of each lamina, while the honeycomb core has been modelled by using an equivalent orthotropic plate. Numerical and experimental results have been compared and a good agreement has been achieved.

Experimental and Numerical Crashworthiness Study of a Full-Scale Composite Fuselage Section

“…Numerical modeling is finding increasing applications in certification procedures, and the continuous progress of the commercial finite element (FE) codes is making the design practice faster and less expensive than the experiments. From this perspective, numerical methods are helpful means to better understand the structural behavior of the aircraft under crash loading conditions [15], allowing its improvement against crashworthiness rules. Numerical models are useful to virtually test different structural architectures/solutions by reducing the prototyping phase and the experimental tests campaign costs.…”

Development of Aircraft Spoiler Demonstrators for Cost-Efficient Investigations of SHM Technologies under Quasi-Realistic Loading Conditions

“…In addition, for many other purposes, small-scale models are used, e.g., aircraft design and flight testing demonstrators [4,5], demonstrators to develop flight-safety-critical systems [6], and technology demonstrators [7,8]. All of these demonstrators are mainly used to bridge the gap between experimental results of simple structures (e.g., airfoil test specimens, material testing specimens, test coupons for bonding tests), together with sophisticated models (numerical models applying the, e.g., finite element method (FEM)) for design calculations, and the final target structures in real applications [9]. Ideally, multiple experiments with such demonstrators in controllable test environments should then validate the preceding simulation results.…”

“…This contribution presents the development of an idealized demonstrator on a 1:2 scale together with a concentrated load optimization methodology to mimic the deformation and strain states (with respect to strain directions) of a large civil aircraft spoiler under a specific aerodynamic load case. A similar algorithm was reported in [9] to define the loading for strength tests of a horizontal stabilizer, where the load amplitudes at a number of fixed introduction points were optimized to reflect a considered load case. However, the load optimization algorithm presented in this work enables one to find the best locations of a specific number of load introduction points.…”

ECMS 2019 Proceedings edited by Mauro Iacono, Francesco Palmieri, Marco Gribaudo, Massimo Ficco

“…These methods are wellestablished and allow designers to improve and to optimize new design solutions. Moreover, several standards propose the use of numerical tools as support for the product certification, giving rise to the Certification by Analysis (di Napoli et al 2018, Sepe et al 2017, Perfetto et al 2018, by reducing the time to market of the products.…”