Manufacturing and Costs of Current Sandwich and Future Monolithic Designs of Spoilers

摘要

Spoilers of large commercial aircraft are often realized in composite sandwich design. Over the past few years, many studies have been focused on finding highly integrated composite structures that can replace such sandwich designs. The motivation is given mainly because of commercial aspects, which from a structural point of view are difficult to justify. Sandwich structures have the intrinsic property of high bending stiffness and are therefore perfectly suitable for the plate-like design of an aircraft spoiler. However, monolithic structures can be produced with a lower cost, and their subcomponents can be easily integrated in a single part. Two monolithic alternatives, which meet all structural requirements, are considered with respect to applied materials, manufacturing processes, and manufacturing costs. The established designs are compared with a standard sandwich spoiler, and thus a holistic view is provided on the selection of designs, processes, and materials for future aircraft spoilers.