Wing Rib Stress Analysis and Design Optimization

Abstract

For aerodynamic reasons the wing contours in the chord wise direction must be maintained without
appreciable distortion. Therefore, to hold the skin stringer wing surface to contour shape and also to
limit the length of the stringers to an efficient column compressive length, internal supporting units
are required. These supporting units are referred to as wing ribs. In the current report, a complete
stress analysis for a wing rib subjected to different kinds of loading is introduced. Two methodologies
for the design of the wing rib are presented. The first method is designing the wing rib as a shear
resistant plate girder that will not buckle nor yield under the applied loads. This method is used for
the design of the lightly loaded ribs where the web stiffeners are omitted and instead a series of
standard flanged lightening holes are introduced. The second method presents a methodology for the
design of a wing rib subjected to moderate to heavy loads (bulkheads). The second method is based
on the incomplete diagonal tension theory. Designing a rib subjected to heavy loads to act as a shear
resistant plate girder will produce a very massive rib. Instead the thickness of the rib will be reduced
to the limit to keep it within the elastic deformations limit but with less buckling resistibility where the
rib is forced to be under incomplete diagonal tension field stresses. Uprights are introduced to the rib
to support rib buckling. A complete stress analysis for the wing rib as well as web uprights is presented.
The analysis procedure is based on theoretical evidence as well as empirical formulations. Key Words
Wing-Box, Skin-Stringer Panels, Ribs and Spars, Maximum Shear Flow, Diagonal Tension, Incomplete
Diagonal Tension, Multi-Disciplinary Design Optimization (MOD).
Table of Contents

Abstract 2

Table of contents

List of Figures

List of Tables 6 Section I:

Overview 7 I-1

Description of the Project 7 I-2 DLR-F6 Aircraft Geometry and Wing Details

Section II: Wing Rib Stress Analysis 11 Calculation of Shear Flow 26 Calculation of section centroid 33

Calculation of section moments of inertia

Calculation of the shear center coordinates

Calculation of wing station external loads

Section III Wing Rib Design Procedure

III-1 The 1st Method: Shear Resistant Plate Girder

III-2 The 2nd Method: Incomplete Diagonal Tension Shear web

References

List of Figures Fig. (1) DLR-F6 wind tunnel model geometry 9

Fig. (2) DLR-F6 wing showing different airfoil sections 10

Fig. (3) 727 aircraft wing with lower skin not installed showing the wing ribs 11

Fig. (4) Wing rib Construction 13 Fig. (5) Leading edge wing rib- skin assembly by riveting 13

Fig. (6) Leading edge wing rib- skin assembly 14

Fig. (7) Lift & Weight and Drag & Thrust balancing the Aircraft 16

Fig. (8) Pitch, Yaw and Roll motions of an Aircraft 16

Fig. (9) CL (vs) η 20

Fig. (10) Lift Force per unit length (vs) η 20

Fig. (11) CMqc (vs) η 22

Fig.(12)

Total Pitching Moment (about Quarter Chord) (vs) η 22

Fig. (13) Shear Force (vs) η 23

Fig. (14) Bending moment (vs) η 23

Fig. (15) The pressure coefficient distribution for the 24 NACA 0012 transonic airfoil
Fig. (16) General representation of the shear force and bending moment distribution acting on a wing
rib [4] 25

Fig. (17) Unsymmetrical cross-section of a straight cantilever beam 26

Fig. (17-a) Non-uniform beam cross section 29

Fig. (17-b) Free body diagram of panels 30

Fig. (18-a) Airfoil cross-section at an arbitrary ‘η ’ along the wing span (Station-j) 31

Fig. (18-b) side view of the wing element ‘dy’ extending from station ‘j’ to station (j+1) along the wing
span 32

Fig. (19) Panel geometry definition using ‘Z’ stringer 33

Fig. (20) Airfoil main lines 46

Fig. (21) the stiffeners arrangement in a shear web subjected to out-of-plane concentrated force 47 5

Fig. (22) Element of Structure subjected to pure shear 48

Fig. (23) Buckled shape of a plate buckled with unsuspended sides and loaded in compression on its
simply-supported ends [11] 49

Fig. (24) pined-pined column before and after buckling [11] 50

Fig. (25) Variation of ‘C1 ’ with the aspect ratio (Approximate) [11] 51

Fig. (26) Coefficient ‘C’ versus the aspect ratio for several boundary conditions (Based on Exact
Formulation Exact) [11] 52

Fig. (27) Theoretical buckling curves for rectangular flat panel in pure shear [11] 53

Fig. (28-a) Theoretical shear buckling coefficient for long, simply supported 54

Fig. (28-b) Theoretical shear buckling coefficient for short simply supported curved panels [11] 54 Fig.
(29) Cross-sections of built up beams 55

Fig. (30) Cross-section of the shear resistant ‘Plate Girder’ beam 56

Fig. (31) Principle of diagonal tension 57

Fig. (32) Forces in Diagonal Tension Field Beam 58

Fig. (33) Secondary bending stresses acting on the upper and the lower flange 60

Fig. (35) Buckling loads of a double upright fastened into a flat web 62

Fig. (35-a) Allowable compressive load in the upright 64 Fig. (36) Failure of the upright by forced
crippling 65

Fig. (37) Stress systems in diagonal tension webs 67

Fig. (38) Angle Factor C1 68

Fig. (39) Stress concentration factors C2 and C3 69

Fig. (42) Angle of the incomplete diagonal tension 72

Fig. (43) Ratio of the maximum stress to the average stress in the upright 73

Fig. (44) Allowable value of maximum shear stress in the web 74

Fig. (45) Allowable value of maximum shear stress in the web 75

Fig. (46) Lightly loaded rib with standard flanged lightening holes [12] 78

Fig. (47) Lightening holes of typical flanged (45o flanged) [12] 78

Fig. (48) Lightening holes with beaded flanged [12] 79 6

Fig. (49) Ultimate allowable gross shear stress for aluminum alloy webs with flanged holes [12] 79 List
of Tables Table 1: Variation of density of air and speed of sound with altitude 18 Table 2 Variation of
Lift Coefficient (vs) η 19 Table 3 Pitching Moment Coefficient about Local Quarter Chord (vs) η 21 7
Section I Overview I-1 Description of the Project: The objective of task 6 in the MOSAIC project is to
improve the available structural analysis modules in the Bombardier Aerospace and perform a
structural design optimization of the wing box by adding an optimization loop around the analysis
code. The objective is to design a wing-box more rapidly and automatically. Task 6 is divided into four
stages. Stage I: Optimization of one skin stringer panel: (finished) Stage I explained in details the
procedure to optimize one skin-stringer panel consists of one stringer with one stringer spacing (or
pitch) of skin in the chord wise direction and the distance between two ribs in the span wise direction.
Skin-stringer panels on the upper and lower wing covers are considered. The load acting on the panels
is taken to be constant (i.e. same load acting on all panels) which resulted in identical dimensions for
all panels. Stage-I provides a methodology to obtain the optimum dimensions for a skin-stringer
compression panel with a minimum mass under six constraints namely crippling stress, column
buckling, up-bending at center span (compression in skin), downbending at supports (compression in
stringer outstanding flange), inter-rivet buckling and beam column eccentricity. It also provides
optimum design variables for panels under tensile loading with fatigue life as a design constraint with
same objective function (Minimum mass for panel). A panel on the lower wing cover is designed for
Damage Tolerance. (For more details refer to report II and III) Stage II: Load Redistribution: (Finished)
Stage II presented the methodology for calculating the actual load experienced by each skin-stringer
panel when arranged on the airfoil profile at any span wise section of the wing. The number of
stringers required on the upper and lower wing covers is obtained by dividing the width of the wing-
box by their corresponding stringer pitch obtained from stage I. These panels are then re- 8 arranged
on the actual airfoil profile at certain span wise section. Each panel now experiences different
magnitude of compressive or tensile load depending on its relative location with respect to the
centriodal axes of the section. The optimum dimensions for panels on upper and lower wing covers
are thus obtained using stage-I optimization program with the new calculated design load which
resulted in a different optimum dimensions for each panel according to its location. (For more details
refer to report IV). Stage III: Optimization of the Spars and Spar Caps: (In progress) This stage is an
extension to stage II. In this stage the development of the optimization tools to include the spars
thickness and web cap dimensions will be considered. Stage IV: FE Model of the wing box: (In Progress)
After all components are optimally sized, the FE model of the wing box will be developed in order to
find the stress and deflection distribution and evaluate margins of safety. The model is being
developed using NASTRAN 2005.1 environment. The optimization processes of the four stages are
being tested on theDLR-F6 aircraft wing box. I-2 DLR-F6 Aircraft Geometry and Wing Details: The
geometry and load details are taken from DLR-F6 aircraft [1]. The actual wind tunnel model geometry
is shown in Figure (1). Axes x, y and z denote the coordinate system for the aircraft body and axes x*,
y* and z* refer to the wing coordinate system. The wing with nacelle is defined in wing coordinate
system and is placed in the body system (according to Figure (1)) with x and z translations of 13.661
in. and -1.335 in respectively with a dihedral of 4.787 degrees.