Post-Fire Damage Assessment of a Composite Wingbox

Abstract

An evaluation of Composite Wing Boxes has been conducted to demonstrate the severity of composite fires and evaluate damage assessment techniques for large-scale composites. The fire test objective was to simulate the fire that would occur following a fuel spill from a large composite aircraft. The test fires simulate the fire that might occur following a pool fire under a static airplane for two scenarios: the first simulates an immediate response to a pool fire by a person located near the aircraft and the second fire simulates a response, five minutes after fire ignition. After the burn, samples from both scenarios were evaluated for changes in rheological and mechanical properties. Properties measured include weight loss, Tg change, thermomechanical properties (storage and loss modulus) and short beam shear strengths. Results from these tests will be presented and discussed. A fire damage description and damage evaluation methodology is outlined that is applicable to a variety of composite materials.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA424330

Entities

People

  • Avhishek Chatterjee
  • David J. Mcgraw
  • Doug S. Dierdorf
  • J. W. Gillespie Jr.
  • Jennifer C. Kiel
  • S. Yarlagadda

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Body Weight
  • Composite Materials
  • Composite Wings
  • Damage Assessment
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Fires
  • Graphitic Materials
  • Materials
  • Materials Testing
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Polymer Matrix Composites
  • Shear Properties
  • Shear Strength
  • Wing Boxes

Readers

  • Fire Suppression Systems Design.
  • Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures.