Abstract
Aeronautical stiffened panels composed of thin shells and beams are prone to deformation or buckling due to the combined loading, functional boundary conditions and interface forces between joined parts in the assembly processes. In this paper, a mechanical prediction model of the multi-component panel is presented to investigate the deformation propagation, which has a significant effect on the fatigue life of built-up structures. Governing equations of Kirchhoff–Love shell are established, of which displacement expressions are transformed into Fourier series expansions of several introduced potential functions by applying the Galerkin approach. This paper presents an intermediate quantity, concentrated force at the joining interface, to describe mechanical interactions between the coupled components. Based on the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory, unknown intermediate quantity is calculated by solving a 3D stringer deformation equation with static boundary conditions specified on joining points. Compared with the finite element simulation and integrated model, the proposed method can substantially reduce grid number without jeopardizing the prediction accuracy. Practical experiment of the aircraft panel assembly is also performed to obtain the measured data. Maximum deviation between the experimental and predicted clearance values is 0.193 mm, which is enough to meet the requirement for predicting dimensional variations of the aircraft panel assembly.
Highlights
Stiffened panel structure composed of slender beams and a thin-walled shell is widely applied in the fields of marine and aeronautical engineering since it is lightweight and has high load-bearing capacity
Maximum deviation of shell displacement between finite element method (FEM) and the proposed results are 0.196 mm which can verify the accuracy of the semi-analytical solutions
The proposed method takes into account the initial positioning variations, clamped boundary conditions imposed on stringers and skin, and the coupling deformation at the joining interface of panel components
Summary
Stiffened panel structure composed of slender beams and a thin-walled shell is widely applied in the fields of marine and aeronautical engineering since it is lightweight and has high load-bearing capacity. The deformation model generated from the single beam theory or shell theory could reduce the computational complexity, it cannot achieve the coupling analysis of structural interaction between multiple adjacent components. For the complex multi-component aircraft, a mechanical model with no consideration of the actual variation of boundary conditions may directly affect the aerodynamic and fatigue performance analysis of the structure. To meet the computational saving and accuracy requirements for the numerical calculations of a large-scale aircraft stiffened panel, an efficient semi-analytical solution for mechanical substructure model of the joined beam-shell structure is firstly proposed in this paper. Based on the Kirchhoff–Love shell theory, governing equations with displacement and rotation boundary constraints are established to calculate the skin deformation resulting from the initial positioning variations and the coupling interaction between the joined parts.
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