A composite hinge has been designed to replace an existing metallic hinge on an aircraft aileron. The existing design consisted in a double webbed hinge which was then attached to the aileron by means of a fork fitting. The proposed single web hinge design aims at reducing the manufacturing cost. Two different composite material systems (thermoset and thermoplastic) were used to manufacture the single web hinges. The sizing of the hinge was performed by conducting a 3-D finite element analysis and using maximum allowable ply strain as the failure criteria. A special purpose test rig was employed to test all hinge specimens under the worst loading case. The initiation of failure in all hinges appeared to be delamination. The ultimate load expected during the operation of the hinge was met by the thermoplastic hinge. The initiation of failure on the thermoset hinge was just below the ultimate load.
Design and testing of an aircraft composite hinge
Konstruktion und Prüfung eines Verbundstoff-Querrudergelenkes für Flugzeuge
1997
9 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 5 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch