Composite Fuselage Continuous Skin Assembly
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional aircraft fuselage and vertical tail plane assembly methods require significant reinforcement and aerodynamic fairings at interface fittings, leading to high loads, weight penalties, and increased drag, as well as complex assembly processes.
Innovation Solution
A manufacturing process for a composite assembly with a continuous skin solution, integrating the tail cone section and vertical tail plane using collapsible spar tools and fuselage barrel tooling to create a multi-spar box structure, eliminating the need for interface fittings and allowing direct load transmission between fuselage and vertical tail plane skins.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If interface fittings are used to join the vertical tail plane and fuselage rear section, then the structural connection is achieved, but the weight increases due to significant reinforcement requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the vertical tail plane and fuselage rear section into a single integrated composite structure where the skin continues seamlessly across the junction. This eliminates the need for separate interface fittings and their associated reinforcement elements, directly resolving the weight penalty while maintaining structural strength through the continuous load path in the composite skin.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts and removes the interface fittings from the assembly by implementing a continuous skin solution. The load transfer function previously performed by fittings is now achieved through the continuous composite skin structure itself, eliminating the harmful fittings while preserving the necessary structural connection.
2Strength
If interface fittings are used to join the vertical tail plane and fuselage rear section, then the structural connection is achieved, but the aerodynamic drag increases due to required fairings
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous skin integration merges the vertical tail plane and fuselage rear section into a unified aerodynamic surface. This eliminates the discontinuities and protrusions that would require fairings, thereby removing the source of aerodynamic drag while maintaining the structural connection through the composite skin continuity.
3Strength
If interface fittings are used to join the vertical tail plane and fuselage rear section, then the structural connection is achieved, but the assembly complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the interface fittings and their associated complexity from the assembly process. By using a continuous skin solution, the complex multi-step assembly involving fitting installation, alignment, and fairing attachment is replaced with a simpler process of forming the integrated composite structure in one or fewer steps.
4Force
If interface fittings concentrate loads on punctual areas, then the load transfer is achieved, but the fatigue and vibro-acoustic issues increase
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous composite skin structure distributes the loads smoothly across the junction area rather than concentrating them at punctual fitting locations. This local quality change in load distribution eliminates the high-stress concentration points that cause fatigue and vibro-acoustic issues, while still achieving effective load transfer from the vertical tail plane to the fuselage.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for manufacturing a composite rear section assembly having a continuous skin solution including obtaining a vertical tail plane tooling that has intermediate tooling for tooling intermediate preforms of a vertical tail plane (800), obtaining a fuselage barrel tooling (420a), (420b), (420c) and (420d) the fuselage barrel tooling having a cut-out (503a), (503b), (503c) and longitudinal cavities (501a), (501b), (501c) and (501d), attaching the vertical tail plane tooling to the fuselage barrel tooling by the cut-out of the fuselage barrel tooling, performing a composite skin lay-up (801) over the fuselage barrel tooling and the vertical tail plane tooling to obtain a continuous skin, curing the composite skin lay-up, the vertical tail plane tooling and the fuselage barrel tooling and demolding the tools to obtain the composite assembly with a continuous skin (1300), (1600).