Structural Design of Fuselage

Abstract

Aircraft structural design initiates with the consideration of major components such as wings, fuselage and empennage and with a formation of limits of maximum load factor at any flight velocity that an aircraft can withstand i.e., the flight envelope or V-n diagram. Fuselage is the main structural component that carries most of the weight and provides the connection to other component. The current work includes structural design of the light sports aircraft (LSA) single seater for the requirements of +6/-5 G limit loads constraints. The objective of the paper is the structural design of fuselage for the given requirements. Structural design is done such that it should have the enough strength even when the aircraft is performing high angle of attack i.e. at 6g and at negative angle of  attack i.e. at 5g performance. Design procedure was followed by each parts structural designing. The geometry of the fuselage is
considered as szmplified hollow tube without any cut-outs and divided into bays and skin panels. By modelling the aerodynamic, gravity, ground reaction forces and internal pressure a free body diagram and force/moment distribution is created for several flight and ground load cases, like +6/-5 G flight, lateral gust or landing load cases.The critical load cases are used for analysis.