Structural Integrity of Air Vehicles

Gripenplan i montering
Assembly of the Gripen E fighter jet. Courtesy of Saab.

Aeronautical research at the division of Solid Mechanics aims to provide novel knowledge in the structural integrity of air vehicles through improved failure criteria and methods of design, evaluation and verification in strength, rigidity, durability and damage tolerance of air vehicles.

Fatigue and damage in aluminum/composite structures

Current research focus areas are within fatigue and damage tolerance predictions under complex loading histories in integral aluminum structures and in joint techniques in hybrid composite-aluminum structures subject to simultaneous cyclic and thermally induced loading.

Materials characterization and mechanical testing are closely related to modeling of materials and failure mechanisms. Computer aided definition systems (CAD) are used in the development of useful and efficient computer aided engineering software (CAE).

Access to a FEM system

An in-house finite element modeling (FEM) system with direct access to source code (TRINITAS) is available for developed algorithms and methods to be tested, explored and validated in a simulated industrial environment.

Topology optimization and additive manufacturing

Topology optimization (TO) techniques are developed and utilized in order to achieve low weight and required stiffness of air vehicle components under robust load conditions and stress related failure mechanisms.

The topology optimization is currently used in research studies on repair techniques of integral metal structures and on additive manufactured (AM) aeronautical components.

Visualisation of Research

Fatigue testing result.
Fatigue testing result from a steel detail in a fighter jet (Viggen). Crack initiation at the bottom with intermittent crack front propagation and arrested states with an increasing speed (Paris' law). Courtesy of Hans Ansell.
Ett gripenplan sett från undersidan
Assembly of the Gripen E fighter jet. Courtesy of Saab.

Contacts

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