Airframe

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the novel by Michael Crichton, see Airframe (novel).
Van's RV-14
cutaway showing its airframe

The

propulsion system.[2]

aerodynamic drag, as well as reliability
and cost.

History

Four types of airframe construction: (1) Truss with canvas, (2) Truss with corrugate plate, (3) Monocoque construction, (4) Semi-monocoque construction.

Modern airframe history began in the United States when a 1903 wood biplane made by Orville and Wilbur Wright showed the potential of fixed-wing designs.

In 1912 the Deperdussin Monocoque pioneered the light, strong and streamlined monocoque fuselage formed of thin plywood layers over a circular frame, achieving 210 km/h (130 mph).[3][4]

First World War

Many early developments were spurred by

monoplanes
. These used hybrid wood and metal structures.

By the 1915/16 timeframe, the German Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft firm had devised a fully monocoque all-wood structure with only a skeletal internal frame, using strips of plywood laboriously "wrapped" in a diagonal fashion in up to four layers, around concrete male molds in "left" and "right" halves, known as Wickelrumpf (wrapped-body) construction[5] - this first appeared on the 1916 LFG Roland C.II, and would later be licensed to Pfalz Flugzeugwerke for its D-series biplane fighters.

In 1916 the German Albatros D.III biplane fighters featured semi-monocoque fuselages with load-bearing plywood skin panels glued to longitudinal longerons and bulkheads; it was replaced by the prevalent stressed skin structural configuration as metal replaced wood.[3] Similar methods to the Albatros firm's concept were used by both Hannoversche Waggonfabrik for their light two-seat CL.II through CL.V designs, and by Siemens-Schuckert for their later Siemens-Schuckert D.III and higher-performance D.IV biplane fighter designs. The Albatros D.III construction was of much less complexity than the patented LFG Wickelrumpf concept for their outer skinning.[original research?]

German engineer Hugo Junkers first flew all-metal airframes in 1915 with the all-metal, cantilever-wing, stressed-skin monoplane Junkers J 1 made of steel.[3] It developed further with lighter weight duralumin, invented by Alfred Wilm in Germany before the war; in the airframe of the Junkers D.I of 1918, whose techniques were adopted almost unchanged after the war by both American engineer William Bushnell Stout and Soviet aerospace engineer Andrei Tupolev, proving to be useful for aircraft up to 60 meters in wingspan by the 1930s.

Between World wars

The J 1 of 1915, and the D.I fighter of 1918, were followed in 1919 by the first all-metal transport aircraft, the

Atlantic by Charles Lindbergh in 1927. William Stout designed the all-metal Ford Trimotors in 1926.[6]

The

flush rivets and butt joints between skin panels in the Hall PH flying boat also flying in 1929.[3] Based on the Italian Savoia-Marchetti S.56, the 1931 Budd BB-1 Pioneer experimental flying boat was constructed of corrosion-resistant stainless steel assembled with newly developed spot welding by U.S. railcar maker Budd Company.[3]

The original Junkers corrugated duralumin-covered airframe philosophy culminated in the 1932-origin

Donald Douglas' firms developed the iconic Douglas DC-3 twin-engined airliner in 1936.[7]
They were among the most successful designs to emerge from the era through the use of all-metal airframes.

In 1937, the Lockheed XC-35 was specifically constructed with cabin pressurization to undergo extensive high-altitude flight tests, paving the way for the Boeing 307 Stratoliner, which would be the first aircraft with a pressurized cabin to enter commercial service.[4]

geodesic airframe
construction and the level of punishment it could withstand while maintaining airworthiness

Second World War

During

P-38 Lightning, and British Vickers Wellington that used a geodesic construction method, and Avro Lancaster, all revamps of original designs from the 1930s. The first jets
were produced during the war but not made in large quantity.

Due to wartime scarcity of aluminium, the

F28.[3]

Postwar

Postwar commercial airframe design focused on

tensile stresses of turboprops and jets were major challenges.[8] Newly developed aluminium alloys with copper, magnesium and zinc were critical to these designs.[9]

Flown in 1952 and designed to cruise at Mach 2 where

SR-71 were also mainly titanium, as was the cancelled Boeing 2707 Mach 2.7 supersonic transport.[3]

Because heat-resistant titanium is hard to weld and difficult to work with, welded

nickel steel was used for the Mach 2.8 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 fighter, first flown in 1964; and the Mach 3.1 North American XB-70 Valkyrie used brazed stainless steel honeycomb panels and titanium but was cancelled by the time it flew in 1964.[3]

A

carbon fiber reinforced polymer were used for wing skins on the McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II, F/A-18 Hornet and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.[3]

Modern era

Rough interior of a Boeing 747 airframe
spar

Bombardier and Embraer lead the regional airliner market; many manufacturers produce airframe components.[relevant?
]

The vertical stabilizer of the

A320 in 1987 and A330/A340 in 1994, and the center wing-box and aft fuselage of the A380 in 2005.[3]

The Cirrus SR20, type certificated in 1998, was the first widely produced general aviation aircraft manufactured with all-composite construction, followed by several other light aircraft in the 2000s.[10]

The

wing aspect ratio and higher cabin pressurization; the competing Airbus A350, flown in 2013, is 53% carbon-fiber by structure weight.[3] It has a one-piece carbon fiber fuselage, said to replace "1,200 sheets of aluminium and 40,000 rivets."[11]

The 2013

aluminium-lithium alloy fuselage for damage resistance and repairability, a combination which could be used for future narrow-body aircraft.[3] In 2016, the Cirrus Vision SF50 became the first certified light jet
made entirely from carbon-fiber composites.

In February 2017, Airbus installed a

electron beam additive manufacturing from Sciaky, Inc.[12]

Airliner composition by mass[13]
Material B747 B767 B757 B777 B787 A300B4
Aluminium 81% 80% 78% 70% 20% 77%
Steel 13% 14% 12% 11% 10% 12%
Titanium 4% 2% 6% 7% 15% 4%
Composites 1% 3% 3% 11% 50% 4%
Other 1% 1% 1% 1% 5% 3%

Safety

Airframe production has become an exacting process. Manufacturers operate under strict quality control and government regulations. Departures from established standards become objects of major concern.[14]

DH106 Comet 3 G-ANLO demonstrating at the 1954 Farnborough Airshow

A landmark in aeronautical design, the world's first

metal fatigue, causing a series of widely publicised accidents. The Royal Aircraft Establishment investigation at Farnborough Airport
founded the science of aircraft crash reconstruction. After 3000 pressurisation cycles in a specially constructed pressure chamber, airframe failure was found to be due to stress concentration, a consequence of the square shaped windows. The windows had been engineered to be glued and riveted, but had been punch riveted only. Unlike drill riveting, the imperfect nature of the hole created by punch riveting may cause the start of fatigue cracks around the rivet.

The

Braniff Flight 542 showed the difficulties that the airframe industry and its airline customers can experience when adopting new technology
.

The incident bears comparison with the Airbus A300 crash on takeoff of the American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001, after its vertical stabilizer broke away from the fuselage, called attention to operation, maintenance and design issues involving composite materials that are used in many recent airframes.[15][16][17] The A300 had experienced other structural problems but none of this magnitude.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-85045-163-9
    .
  2. ^ "FAA Definitions". Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Graham Warwick (Nov 21, 2016). "Designs That Changed The Way Aircraft Are Built". Aviation Week & Space Technology.
  4. ^ a b c Richard P. Hallion (July 2008). "Airplanes that Transformed Aviation". Air & space magazine. Smithsonian.
  5. ^ Wagner, Ray & Nowarra, Heinz (1971). German Combat Planes: A Comprehensive Survey and History of the Development of German Military Aircraft from 1914 to 1945. New York: Doubleday. pp. 75 & 76.
  6. ^ David A. Weiss (1996). The Saga of the Tin Goose. Cumberland Enterprises.
  7. ^ Peter M. Bowers (1986). The DC-3: 50 Years of Legendary Flight. Tab Books.
  8. ^ Charles D. Bright (1978). The Jet Makers: the Aerospace Industry from 1945 to 1972. Regents Press of Kansas.
  9. ^ Aircraft and Aerospace Applications. INI International. 2005. Archived from the original on 2006-03-08. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  10. ^ "Top 100 Airplanes:Platinum Edition". Flying. November 11, 2013. p. 11.
  11. ^ Leslie Wayne (May 7, 2006). "Boeing Bets the House on Its 787 Dreamliner". New York Times.
  12. ^ Graham Warwick (Jan 11, 2017). "Airbus To 3-D Print Airframe Structures". Aviation Week & Space Technology.
  13. doi:10.3390/recycling2040021
    .
  14. ^ Florence Graves and Sara K. Goo (Apr 17, 2006). "Boeing Parts and Rules Bent, Whistle-Blowers Say". Washington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  15. ^ Todd Curtis (2002). "Investigation of the Crash of American Airlines Flight 587". AirSafe.com.
  16. ^ James H. Williams Jr. (2002). "Flight 587". Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  17. ^ Sara Kehaulani Goo (Oct 27, 2004). "NTSB Cites Pilot Error in 2001 N.Y. Crash". Washington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2010.

Further reading

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