1. Composite used in aircraft manufacturing for small scale industries
Tushar D. Dange
University of Massachusetts, Lowell

2. INTRODUCTION
In the revolution of high technology of aircraft industrial world has came because of
composite materials. It is due to the main property of highly effective and efficient
material which is leads to advanced ones. In world of business, customer satisfaction is
the most important thing which has become a great need now a day. As innovation going
on in the field of composites, the demand of these materials has increased because of
higher lighter in weight, less expensive, stronger, durable which helped aircraft industries
to achieve their respective goals. In the field of research and development, the scientist
has proved that the use of composite materials in the aircraft has made them efficient
which also further used in the field of defense industries.
The composite materials are made from two or more constituent materials with respective
different chemical and physical properties, if we mix these materials with each other then
we will get a different material with respective different properties. This kind of material
can be used for more purposes such as flexibility, strength, durability, and so on.
The composite materials has become famous in the middle of the nineteenth century in
the manufacturing of aircraft field. Comparatively, the fiber glass material was used at
great quantity because of number of characteristics such as light weight, less expensive,
lesser corrosive, and so on. Up to mid nineties, usually the aluminum was being used.
Scientists has suffered number of difficulties in the usage of aluminum in the field of

3. manufacturing as well as in actual use. The composite materials has gone further in the
process of polymerization of composites which generally contains polymetric matrices
and fibers. Also, the honeycomb cores as well as structural adhesives used in the
manufacturing of sandwich like components and laminations made by metallic [3].
In honeycomb composite material, the core material is very important to design which
must be light weight with better/strong compression. The natural honeycombs are nothing
but wood, different types of foam. Here, foam is light weight, easy to give shape compare
to wood, but weak in compression and looses shapes after usage. Mostly, nomex
honeycombs were used, figure shown below with the properties [1].
figure 1: Honeycomb composite structure [1]

4. Properties
Carbon
Prepreg
Kevlar/carbon
Weave
Nomex
Honeycomb
E (fiber direction MPa) 131,000 75,800 192.5
E (transverse direction
MPa)
6,200 131,000 192.5
G (MPa) 4,830 3,450 63
Poisson's Ratio 0.25 0.30 0.05
Ply Thickness (m) 0.0001 0.0005 0.005
table 1: Composite material properties [1]
FAILURE OF COMPOSITE MATERIAL
If we talk about safety and security then in the field of aircraft it becomes crucial thing.
Let say an automobile/ a plane get ripped off then what will happen, obviously an
accident. The following figure will give us an exact idea about the same.
figure 2: ripped off damage to an airplane [2]

5. The components that used in the manufacturing of composite materials are mainly fibers
and matrix.
The fibers are mostly get used in the reinforcement in carbon fibers, glass fibers, aramid
fiber, and so on where manufacturing of outside layer or skin of an aircraft at higher
temperature get used. Also, it has been proved that carbon fibers are the better materials
that can be used in the process of manufacturing because of better mechanical properties
comparatively.
About matrix, they are nothing but the ingredients to build the fibers which transfers
stresses to find the degree of realization of mechanical properties of fibers and
performance of composites. Adhesion and behavior of stress-strain properties also the
important terms where these properties makes control on matrix to transfer the stresses
[3].
RESULTS:
In an aircraft, a wing is a crucial thing that helps to swing the plane in the air. The results
that to be addressed half-span wing and fuselage fabrication in which the RTM and
winding technology get used where it results into overall estimated production cost,
quality on the basis of inspection, different types of efficiencies during testing of flight.

6. RESULTS OF DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGY:
As said before, RTM technologies are helpful in the manufacturing of wing which
contains ore seal and co-curing of large integrated structure. In the process resin
impregnation, the winding technologies are used for the manufacturing of fuselage which
contains spreading of fiber and for consolidation we need to mold by pushing out direct
winding on a fuselage shaped mandrel.
COST AND WEIGHT:
The average weight of overall design is three percent of calculated weight. Since, the cost
of production which has estimated of a wing exceeds the target of production cost
because of the usage of carbon fibers and foam (PMI- polymethacrylimide). In the
improvement of design it has seen that the use of foam has decreased. In addition, instead
of carbon fiber, wound broad goods has surprisingly decreased the cost. In practical,
fuselage weight has increased the targeted design by 20% and reason is in the production
process, the self adhesive properties are depend on skin to core bonding [5].
Moreover, the testing performance on fuselage, lowers the resin content with the required
quality which gives better results in lowering the weight. In coda, the cost got lowered
with the help of low cost fiber, resin, and direct usage of fuselage skin [6].

7. OVERALL QUALITY:
Look wise, design, and dimensional quality inspections were get conducted on wings and
fuselage structure. On the basis of quality inspection, the acceptance get documented
including the required derivations.
The geometric inspections depends on portable measuring equipments where the wing
get concluded as smooth and within required waviness. The tolerance is applied at the
contour area that is the training edge aft corner.
For getting the better design, the laser measurement is used for wings mostly at the
corners. During failure of this process, the OML mold (outer mold line) is used to
internal pressure and elevated temperature in the process of curing the fuselage. Due to
waviness and roughness, after solving the issues with the windings, it meets the required
criteria of waviness, but the roughness still remains achievable because of bridging
between the fuselage skin and mold surface which results in small winding mandrel.
In the fuselage structure, the inspection of dimensions shows that the requirement of
drawing generally satisfies, but needs improvements in the frame. Also, the issues with
the location control are because of winding mandrel and can be confirmed with the help
of laser measurement. The analysis of wing can be measured with the help of different
soft skills such as FEMAP Nastran, Ansys, Abaqus, and so on. The figure guides the
exact analysis of a wing shown below [6].

8. figure 3: finite element analysis of a wing with the help of abaqus software [4]
DISCUSSION
FUTURE USE:
In development analysis, resin transfer molding (RTM) for wing and direct winding for
fuselage has been identified and shown the use of core sealing, fabrication of transferable
resin in different room temperature, wounded filaments in the manufacturing processes of
aircrafts.
The resin transfer molding is having different types of applications such as aerodynamics
surfaces, control surface structures for large commercial aircrafts. Its better in sealing of
core materials to stable the core and prevents moisture and from freezing.
In winding process, fabrication of fuselage and push-out technologies has shown feasible,
cost effective, but not light weight. Here, the use of direct winding will be effective for

9. all the composite aircraft fuselage. It can be easily applicable to other fuselage
(commercial ones) which requires more performance and light weight aircrafts [6].
ESTIMATION OF PRODUCTION COST:
It can be find out after the development where the cost achievements of wing and
fuselage should be met before the development. In addition, the production cost can be
reduced with the help of technologies for the fabrication of wing, fuselage, and other
aircraft components/ structures [5].
CONCLUSION
Co-curing of a half-span wing is highly recommended structure for feasible and cost
effective. The Sealing of honeycomb and foam core are also helpful in resin transfer
where the RTM process got introduced and developed. Because of this, many advantages
has introduced that co-curing of complicated parts. Furthermore, design and
manufacturing processes of wing has reduced the overall cost.
Moreover, the winding technologies that fabricates small fuselage, resin impregnation in
the process, spreading of fiber, has achieved the targeted cost reduction. Also, winding
can be an effective production of carbon fiber/ epoxy structures.
So, further development resin systems, winding technologies, and co-curing will be the
important factors for the application of other aircraft vehicles.

10. REFERENCE(S)
[1] http://web.mit.edu/3.082/www/team2_f01/background.html
[2] http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Southwest-Plane.jpg
[3] Abbott Ira H, Von Doenhoff Albert E. Theory of wing sections. Dover edition, Dover
Publications Inc, 1959
[4] V. Tran, B. Rothrock: “Structural Design,” ch. 7, pp. 45-54.
[5] Anderson A, Simpson C and Ta’ala B. Low cost manufacturing method for general
aviation aircraft fuselage. AIAA/ICAS International Air and Space Symposium and
Exposition: The Next 100 Years, Dayton, Ohio, 2003-2766, 14-17 July 2003.
[6] Gardiner R, Maxwell M and Teufel P. Low cost composite manufacturing method for
a general aviation aircraft wing. AIAA/ICAS International Air and Space Symposium
and Exposition: The Next 100 Years, Dayton, Ohio, 2003-2768, 14-17 July 2003.