Reduced weight is an ever-increasing demand within the aerospace industry, and non-traditional means of achieving this demand are increasingly being considered. There is also a desire to reduce the manual labor involved in attaching thousands of parts together with rivets and other fasteners. Using advanced stiffener concepts can avoid the weight of fasteners and streamline fabrication by reducing the part count, while still providing the mandatory strength requirements for flight certification. Described herein is a set of manufacturing trials that were completed at NASA Langley Research Center to investigate the feasibility of various integrated stiffener concepts. Fully composite stiffeners that can be integrated or attached by other means, either through bonding or interleaving them within the skin, can remove the fasteners and still maintain a rapid manufacturing rate. This study contains these advanced stiffener concepts, and the lessons learned and design iterations that resulted from the series of manufacturing trials. Each set of trials was completed with an end goal of using tow-steered integral stiffeners for flight structure in composite aircraft wings.
Manufacturing Trials of Integrally Stiffened Panels for Flight Applications
2023 SciTech Forum and Exhibition ; 2023 ; National Harbor, MD, US
Conference paper
No indication
English
Research Program for Forging Integrally-Stiffened Panels
NTIS | 1950
|Vapour blasting equipment for integrally-stiffened panels
Engineering Index Backfile | 1957
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