Experimental Study of Impact-Protective Elements for Unidirectional Ribs of Lattice Composite Aircraft Structures

Abstract

Lattice structures based on unidirectional composite ribs is currently one of the most promising directions of research aiming to create lightweight and reliable structure of future aircrafts [1]. Hybrid structure concepts based on lattice layouts have been developed for a number of conventional and non-conventional civil aircraft configurations, giving up to 15-20% weight saving as compared to conventional composite structures based on laminated skin and stiffeners [2]. One of the most critical problems of load-bearing lattice composite structures is very high sensitivity to impact loads, which is even more crucial than for the laminated composite structures. At the same time, topology of lattice grid makes it possible to create reliable protective system for the ribs, which can be effective in terms of weight expenses.