Objective
Objectives and content
The aeronautical industry needs to reduce the cost for
verification of composite structures to maintain the
European share of the market. Current verification
procedures are to a very large extent based on testing
both for material qualification and establishment of
design data, as well as for static and fatigue life
substantiation. Single companies can only make minor
improvements to the verification procedure while a joint
programme in which aeronautical industries and research
institutes are working together can take a huge step
ahead.
The primary objective of the EDAVCOS programme is to
determine a cost efficient route to certification for
composite aircraft structures. The means is a validated
analysis based procedure for structural verification from
initial design to final certification. The targets are
50% reduction of the total cost for verification and 60%
time scale reduction.
The programme will consist of a method development part,
an application and validation part, and a procedure
definition part. The objective of the methods
development part is to develop and validate fewer tests
demanding design methods and new test procedures
incorporating e.g. truncation and elimination criteria
for fatigue testing. The reduction of the amount of
testing and time spent in testing will be achieved by the
development and validation of analytical and numerical
tools suggested within this programme. The starting
point for this research is the large amount of promising
research results obtained by the partners within several
nationals and international research programmes. The
major part of these methods have only been applied and
validated at the coupon level and have therefore not been
applied in the development of real aircraft structures.
The strong participation of research institutes in this
programme will give the right conditions for development
of methods, which will reach the level of structural
application. The methods developed will be applicable to
generic wing and fuselage structures comprising stiffened
panels, sandwich panels, shear webs and bolted joints.
The objective with the application and validation part is
to demonstrate the applicability and validity of the
methods on benchmarks; representative of the generic
structural elements mentioned above which will be tested
in the programme. The tests will be well instrumented
and post-mortem failure analyses of the specimens will
give valuable information about the failure modes, which
can be used for further improvement of the analysis
methods. The objective with the procedure definition
part is to define a new verification procedure based on
the increased analysis capability achieved in the methods
development part and new approaches for fatigue testing,
handling of impact damages, and environmental effects.
This part of the programme will be carried out with
support from appointed airworthiness experts.
In addition to the targeted overall cost and time scale
reduction for verification of composite aircraft
structures a reduction of the life cycle cost is
anticipated due to the increased analysis capability.
The increased analysis capability will also lead to
weight savings since more accurate computations allow
conservatism to be reduced simultaneously as the overall
safety level is increased.
This programme will significantly contribute to the longterm objectives set for Aeronautical Technologies in the
IMT work programme and especially 3A3.14 with respect to
cost efficiency, weight reduction and safety.
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
581 88 Linkoeping
Sweden
Participants (14)
80038 Pomigliano D'arco - Napoli
PR4 1AX Preston
81043 Napoli - Capua
28906 Getafe - Madrid
75781 Paris
161 11 Bromma
38108 Braunschweig
26441 Patras
28850 Madrid
8300 AD Emmeloord
92322 Châtillon
1130 Bruxelles
3560 Lummen
GU14 0LX Farnborough - Hampshire
