FEM ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE STRINGERS FOR AN AIRPLANE FUSELAGE

Abstract

With the advent of technology, materials have advanced many folds; One such technical revelation has been Fiber-reinforced Composite Materials. Composite materials have two major advantages, among many others: Improved strength and stiffness, especially compared to other materials on a unit weight basis. For example, Composite materials have stiffness comparable to the stiffness of steel but with a strength decimal order higher and more than three times lighter. These advantages have led to new aircraft and spacecraft designs that are radical departures from past efforts based on conventional materials. The stringers serve to take up(along with the skin) the compression and tension forces created at the bending of the fuselage, besides the stringers with frames strengthen the skin, thus increasing its critical compression and shearing stress. This paper focuses on a comparative study of Aluminum Alloys and Composite materials for a Stringer. Composite materials such as Glass Fiber reinforced composite, Kevlar Epoxy and Carbon fiber reinforced composite are used for the study. Stringers with various cross-sections such as I-beam, box beam and double I-beam are analyzed for composite materials, along with those made up of Aluminum alloys for the same boundary conditions. It is observed that compared to Aluminum 6061-T6, composites show lower displacement in Carbon and Kevlar, whereas lower stresses in all for the same boundary and loading conditions.