ALTERNATIVE SANDWICH CORE STRUCTURES- EFFICIENT INVESTIGATION OF APPLICATION POTENTIAL BY USING FINITE ELEMENT MODELING

摘要

Within the framework of Airbus fuselage research project alternative core structures and materials are investigated for the double shell fuselage concept. Folded structures and Z-pinned foam materials (X-cor, K-cor) have been identified as possible structural replacement for conventional honeycomb materials. Extensive numerical investigations were conducted in order to identify and to optimize the different sandwich core configurations. A fully automated FE modeling tool was developed based on the mathematical relation of folded structures geometry and its density properties. In the parametric finite element analyses of different sandwich configurations, several core geometries with similar stiffness as conventional honeycomb were found. A number of geometric optimization vectors were discovered to provide strength improvement. Test results were compared against numerical values.