As a part of the design program of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 fuselage, experiments were performed on unstiffened and stiffened shells with longitudinal cracks. The shells were loaded under internal pressure. In these experiments, flapping of the cracks was observed. Above a certain length, the cracks no longer propagated in longitudinal direction but they turned towards a circumferential line. In an aircraft, this type of U-shaped crack would form a much larger outlet in the pressurized fuselage than a straight crack would do. The larger hole would allow a more rapid decompression before catastrophic damage could occur, especially since the decompression relieves the main load on the pressurized fuselage. In e.g. the Boeing 737-200, cracks have indeed been found to flap. If one would rely on flapping for the safety of the aircraft, it is essential that one must be certain that a crack will flap. Instead of relying on flapping for the primary damage tolerance of a pressurized fuselage, flapping can always be used as an additional safety precaution. Then, besides the normal damage tolerance of the fuselage, the flapping can form an additional safety precaution.


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    Titel :

    Survey of Crack Path Stability Criteria and Their Application to Crack Flapping Phenomena in Stiffened Structures


    Beteiligte:

    Erscheinungsdatum :

    1992


    Format / Umfang :

    168 pages


    Medientyp :

    Report


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch





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