Development of a co-cured composite torque shaft for rudder of high speed aircraft

摘要

The Carbon Fibre reinforced Composites are widely used in developing various composite parts of civil and13; military aircraft due to its high specific strength and specific stiffness. Rudder being a primary control surface in an aircraft, it is subjected to various loads and needs high degree of structural integrity. Usually rudders are made of metal with many fasteners. In NAL we have designed and developed a composite rudder. Specialty of this13; rudder is that it has a torque shaft made up of carbon composite and has only few rivets. Conventionally torque13; shaft s are made up of special metals like titanium. The objective of this paper is to highlight the development of13; various tooling techniques used to fabricate the composite torque shaft . All major parts of the torque shaft are13; made by Co-curing technique and the metal attachments are embedded to the composite parts by self locking13; mechanism design. To qualify the torque shaft fatigue tests are done and ageing studies performed to prove13; structural integrity of the torque shaft under extreme environmental conditions. This paper portrays the13; development efforts, tolling and fabrication approaches for successful realization of the CFRP Torque Shaft.