Case Studies of Aircraft Fuselage Cracking

Abstract

Fatigue plays a significant role in the crack growth of the fuselage skin structures. In addition, the fuselage may suffer also from the corrosion damage, and the wear defects. The proper maintenance and scheduled test intervals can avoid the sudden skin failure. Therefore, the inspection interval has to be shortened. Nevertheless, the young machines may be also suffering from the unexpected skin rupture. The cracks are emanating from the rivets and the holes under cyclic loading. The stress concentration around the notch has an effective role under the effect of cyclic loading. The cracks propagate toward the high stressed area such as the notches or other crack locations. The propagation into a critical crack size is rather fast and causes a sudden aircraft fuselage cracking. Hence, the number of cycles to failure will be decreased dramatically. During the last decades, the fracture toughness, design, and the new alloying element have been enhanced. The previous fuselage failures show that the inspections against the cracking are recommended even after a few thousand of cycles. To prevent the crack extending, the crack arresting is recommended to use around the fuselage.