Detailed FE aircraft fuselage sections for water impact simulations in the pre-design process chain

Abstract

The automatic generation of representative fuselage section models with a detailed discretization for the application in computer-aided transient dynamic simulations in the aircraft pre-design process chains is described in this paper. The process consists of Python routines to select and reduce the section from the full fuselage and to refine the mesh and extrude cross-sections in arbitrary zones of the section. By this, different mesh qualities can be integrated in the model according to its individual application. These functionalities were integrated in the structural modelling and sizing framework PANDORA. A simple reinforced panel was used to investigate its structural behaviour with different discretization options under a bending loading condition. Also, a fuselage section model reinforced using either one of the discretization options was subjected to a quasi-static loading. The model was then simulated under crash conditions to investigate its non-linear structural behaviour. The focus of this paper lays on the application and the local structural analysis of the detailed fuselage section in water impact simulations.