The Boeing Company

Navin Kumar

Venkata Narasimha Ravi Udali

Eric S Lester

Alan N Baumgarten

Sachin Kulshrestha

Michael A O'Grady

Tejoram Bhagavathula

An apparatus is provided for analysis of a leading edge rib of a fixed leading edge section of an aircraft wing. The apparatus may identify geometric or inertial properties of a plurality of stiffeners of the rib, and based thereon perform an analysis to predict a failure rate of the leading edge rib under an external load. From the failure rate, the apparatus may determine a structural integrity of the leading edge rib under the external load. Performing the analysis may include importing a plurality of section cuts into a finite element model of the rib and thereby identifying nodes proximate the section cuts. Under an external load, internal load distributions may be extracted from elements proximate the nodes and elements, and the failure rate of the leading edge rib under the external load may be predicted based on the internal load distributions of the elements.

Modeling and analysis of leading edge ribs of an aircraft wing

An apparatus is provided for analysis of a leading edge rib of a fixed leading edge section of an aircraft wing. The apparatus may identify geometric or inertial properties of a plurality of stiffeners of the rib in which respective stiffeners are represented by a collection of geometry within a solid model of the rib, and perform an analysis to predict a failure rate of the leading edge rib under an external load. From the failure rate, the apparatus may determine a structural integrity of the leading edge rib under the external load. Identifying the properties may include, extracting a section cut of the geometry that corresponds to and has one or more properties of the respective stiffener, and identifying the properties of the cross-section and thereby the respective stiffener based on a correlation of the cross-section to a generic profile of a plurality of different cross-sections.

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Mukilteo, WA, United States of America

Navin Kumar