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Reliability analysis for a hypersonic aircraft’s wing spar

Yuhui Wang (College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China)
Peng Shao (Shanghai Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai, Shanghai, China)
Qingxian Wu (College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China)
Mou Chen (College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China)

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology

ISSN: 0002-2667

Article publication date: 1 February 2019

Issue publication date: 17 May 2019

333

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present a novel structural reliability analysis scheme with considering the structural strength degradation for the wing spar of a generic hypersonic aircraft to guarantee flight safety and structural reliability.

Design/methodology/approach

A logarithmic model with strength degradation for the wing spar is constructed, and a reliability model of the wing spar is established based on stress-strength interference theory and total probability theorem.

Findings

It is demonstrated that the proposed reliability analysis scheme can obtain more accurate structural reliability and failure results for the wing spar, and the strength degradation cannot be neglected. Furthermore, the obtained results will provide an important reference for the structural safety of hypersonic aircraft.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed reliability analysis scheme has not implemented in actual flight, as all the simulations are conducted according to the actual experiment data.

Practical implications

The proposed reliability analysis scheme can solve the structural life problem of the wing spar for hypersonic aircraft and meet engineering practice requirements, and it also provides an important reference to guarantee the flight safety and structural reliability for hypersonic aircraft.

Originality/value

To describe the damage evolution more accurately, with consideration of strength degradation, flight dynamics and material characteristics of the hypersonic aircraft, the stress-strength interference method is first applied to analyze the structural reliability of the wing spar for the hypersonic aircraft. The proposed analysis scheme is implemented on the dynamic model of the hypersonic aircraft, and the simulation demonstrates that a more reasonable reliability result can be achieved.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61773204) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant NO. NJ20160022).

Citation

Wang, Y., Shao, P., Wu, Q. and Chen, M. (2019), "Reliability analysis for a hypersonic aircraft’s wing spar", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 91 No. 4, pp. 549-557. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-11-2017-0242

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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