Design, Fabrication, Testing and Analysis of Bolted Structural Elements
Abstract
This report presents design and fabrication details for a bolted structural element concept that was studied as a potential alternative to the existing vertical tail-to-fuselage attachment in the F/A-18A aircraft. Two elements were fabricated, based on an approximate and conservative preliminary design, and were subjected to two lifetimes of representative tension-dominated F/A-18A vertical tail spectrum loading. Both elements survived the fatigue loads with no indication of failure. Their residual tensile failure loads were approximately 30% larger than the design ultimate load value the elements were also analyzed using the SAMCJ computer code developed in this Northrop/AFWAL program. Analytically predicted element strength was within 7% of the measured value. Analytically predicted failure location also coincided with experimental observations. However, the observed failure mode could not be predicted by the developed analysis. Nevertheless, this task established the adequacy of the SAMCJ computer code for predicting the strength of bolted joints in composite structures.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1986
- Accession Number
- ADB107745
Entities
People
- E. S. Saether
- E. Tossavainen
- R. L. Ramkumar