The Boeing Company

Lyle Ray Deobald

Kenneth L Brook

Gregory B Doty

Timothy D Jackson

Jeffery Lee Marcoe

John Dempsey Morris

Christopher Gary Harris

Jeffrey F Stulc

Zeaid F Hasan

Karl B Lee

Madhavadas Ramnath

Mark Charles Iden

Aaron N Rinn

Nickolas Scott Ellerbeck

Kenneth J Duffie

James A Backlund, Jr

Phillip Roger Pratt

Gary E Georgeson

Kenneth Harlan Griess

Daniel James Wright

Michael D Fogarty

Bernhard Dopker

Mark Ronald McLaughlin

Derek Paul Vetter

Thomas Joseph Kennedy

David Bruce Smith

Michael Robert Rush

Michael Jeffrey Graves

Matthew Anthony Dilligan

Gerald E Mabson

Nihar Ashokkumar Desai

Colin Lee Farr

Clinton L Johnson

Shane Frank Cuda

Ying Shan

Kenneth John Duffié

Joshua Amory Ross

Satya S Vangala

Avnishkumar A Patel

Mark Ronald Mclaughlin

Kenneth John DuffiÉ

Zeaid Fouad Hasan

Philip Roger Pratt

James A Backlund Jr

Structurally reinforced composite components are disclosed having access openings reinforced to increase strain load and buckling load without adding weight to the composite components by inducing out-of-plane regions proximate to the access opening during composite prepreg laminate layup.

Composite materials having reinforced access openings

An aircraft includes a wing and a wing box. The wing is joined to the wing box at a side of body joint. The wing and the wing box each includes lower skin and a plurality of stringers on the skin. Ends of at least some of the stringers at the side of body joint have a web cutout and a base that is spanwise tapered to a knife edge at the skin.

Aircraft side of body joint

A stringer beam joint structure of an aircraft formed from fiber-reinforced composites includes a wing and a wing box. The wing is joined to the wing box at a side of a joint structure. The wing and the wing box each includes a lower skin. A plurality of stringers is coupled to the lower skin and all made of fiber-reinforced composites. A first end of at least one of the plurality of stringers at the side of the joint structure features a web cutout with a taper formed in the base flange that spans longitudinal to the respective stringer and the taper located at the end of each respective stringer, where the taper runs from a knife edge of a base flange of the respective stringer to a full height of the base flange. The tapered surface of the base flange is contiguous with an edge of the web cutout.

Composite stringer beam joint structure of an aircraft

The disclosure herein provides for disbond resistant stringer runouts. Various aspects may be used independently or in combination to mitigate disbonding associated with the stiffener runout under operational loads. Aspects include a stiffener runout having rounded base flange corners. A recessed notch may be incorporated within the base flange to provide a flange termination point that is forward of the web termination point, allowing the web to terminate prior to the base flange. The web may be trimmed from a full height to a reduced height at the web termination point. The base flange may be co-bonded to the underlying composite structure via a scarf joint. Perimeter clamp radius fillers may be used to concentrate a clamping force around the perimeter of the base flange.

Disbond resistant composite stiffener runout

An open-channel stiffener for stiffening a panel has a bonding flange for bonding the stiffener to the panel through a bondline formed between the bonding flange and the panel to form a stiffened panel. The open-channel stiffener has a cross-sectional shape that aligns, or substantially aligns, a shear center of the stiffener with a centroid of the stiffener and aligns the shear center proximate an edge of the bondline, and removes the need for a radius filler noodle. A plurality of perforations may be formed through the bonding flange to permit an adhesive to wick into the perforations and create a mechanical interlock between the bonding flange and the panel.

Open-channel stiffener

A stiffened panel comprises a composite panel, and a stiffener including a base flange on the composite panel. The base flange is tapered towards the panel. The stiffened panel further comprises a composite overwrap layer on only the composite panel and a tapered surface of the base flange.

Stiffened composite panels

A composite stiffener is fabricated using preforms of laminated, unidirectional composite tape. The stiffener includes a void that is reinforced by a filler wrapped with a structural adhesive. The surfaces of the preforms surrounding the void include a layer of composite fabric which is bonded to the filler by the adhesive, thereby increasing the toughness of stiffeners around the void and improving pull-off strength of the stiffener.

Reinforced stiffeners and method for making the same

A composite structure having a base charge and an outer channel charge is provided. The outer channel charge has an inner radius and an outer radius. A charge of plies adjacent to the inner radius reduces the inner radius.

Composite structures having reduced area radius fillers and methods of forming the same

In non-limiting, exemplary embodiments a mount assembly is provided for mounting an inspection sensor to a surface of a workpiece. The mount assembly includes a mount having an attachment portion and an engagement portion. The attachment portion is arranged to attach the mount to the surface of the workpiece. The engagement portion is arranged to engage the inspection sensor with the mount. Exemplary mount assemblies may be arranged to mount pulse echo ultrasonic testing transducers, focused ultrasonic testing transducers, through transmission ultrasonic testing transducers, eddy current inspection sensors, or any type of inspection sensor as desired.

Inspection sensor mounts and a method for mounting an inspection sensor

A finite element method for predicting crack opening and propagation entails defining a succession of overlapping interface elements at a potential crack plane, each element having a bound node pair and side node pairs spaced from the bound node pair to sense approach of a crack. An energy-based fracture mechanics criterion determines whether release occurs at the bound nodes and, if so, the displacement between the bound nodes is calculated based on a strain softening law. The process is repeated for each element in sequence.

Method and interface elements for finite-element fracture analysis

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Shoreline, WA, United States of America

Lyle Ray Deobald