Investigation on a multispar composite wing

Abstract

The potential advantages of an airliner composite wing are investigated by considering a multispar configuration. An efficient initial sizing methodology, suitable for large-scale composite components, such as the studied aircraft main wing, is applied for the preliminary design of a multispar wing. The methodology comprises three basic modules, i.e. the computational stress analysis of the structure, the comparison of the stress–strain results to design allowable, and a suitable resizing procedure in order to satisfy all design requirements. A detailed comparison between optimized designs of conventional (2-spar) and three alternative wing configurations, which comprise 4-, 5-, and 6-spars for the wing construction is performed. In order to understand the effect of different material properties, as well as the variation of maximum strain level allowed the total wing mass, parametric analyses are performed for all configurations considered. Comparing the conventional and the multispar arrangements, it arises that under certain conditions, the multispar configuration demonstrates significant advantages over the conventional design. In addition, for all the configurations investigated, i.e. the 2-, 4-, 5- and 6-spar designs, the mass breakdown in the wing subcomponents is presented, such that the maximum mass saving potentials are identified for each multispar configuration.