Bio-Inspired Design of Aerospace Composite Joints
This paper uses bio-inspired design principles to improve the damage tolerance of aerospace fibre-polymer composite T-joints. The design of tree branch joints at different scale levels from the cellular up to the macro-scale is investigated, and the design features are applied to carbon/epoxy T-joints to improve their damage tolerance under tension, bending and compression loads. X-ray computed tomography of a pine tree (Pinus radiata) revealed three main design features of tree branch joints which provide high structural efficiency: embedded design of the branch into the trunk; three-dimensional fibril lay-up in the principal stress directions; and variable fibril density to achieve iso-strain conditions through the joint connection. This paper adapts the embedded design feature to a representative aerospace Tjoint made of prepreg carbon fabric/epoxy composite. Experimental testing revealed a conventionally designed T-joint experiences brittle failure due to the geometric stress raiser of the radius bend coupled with low interlaminar tensile strength. T-joints with 50％ or 75％ of the stiffener plies embedded into the skin panel showed increased ductility and absorbed inelastic strain energy under through-thickness tension and stiffener bending loadingconditions. Improvements in absorbed strain energy of up to 50％ were achieved using the bioinspired design feature. However, these improvements are achieved at the expense of reduced compressive load capacity of the bio-inspired T-joints.
bio-inspired biomimetics T-joint integrated structures composite
L. Burns A.P. Mouritz D. Pook S. Feih
School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT UniversityGPO Box 2476, Melbourn Boeing Research and Technology Australia,226 Lorimer St (Private Bag 4), Port Melbourne, Victoria, A
国际会议
2011年亚太航空航天技术学术会议(APISAT 2011)
澳大利亚
英文
1-11
2011-02-28（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）