IJSRD - International Journal for Scientific Research & Development| Vol.

6, Issue 03, 2018 | ISSN (online): 2321-0613

Structural Analysis of Aircraft Wing J Nose Panel using Mono and Multi
Core Composite Materials
Srinuvasu1 Rajesh Chandra2 Ranjith V3
1,2,3
Department of Mechanical Engineering
1,2,3
Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Bangalore 56
Abstract— The sandwich construction has been recognized as
a promising concept for structural design of light weight
systems such as wings of aircraft; purpose to design a light-
weight sandwich panel for trailers. Strength calculations, skin
instability and selection of materials were carried out in order
to find a new solution for this specific application. The
sandwich panel consists of 2 layers of face sheets, with ply 1
has 0.3 mm thickness & ply 2 has 0.1 mm thickness and core
is present between top and bottom face sheets which has 19.2
mm (Mono-core) and 9.4 mm (Multi-core) thickness. The
sandwich composite panels mono core and multi core testing
performed by MSC Nastran/Patran MARC software to
simplify the core material selection process and to design the Fig. 1: Internal structure of the wing.
layers , static 4-point bending test , compression test, tensile Reduction of mass has always presented a challenge
test and shear test are executed by finite element method pre- to the Design Engineer. This led engineers to look to more
process perform using MSC PATRAN solved in NASTRAN efficient structures, and a patent application went through for
MARC software and engross behaviour of mono core and Honeycomb manufacture, the basic idea was to use the
multi core panel , grounded on result obtained from the four Honeycomb as a shear web between two skins. At this stage
point bending test, compression test and shear test of glass the Adhesive Technology was not yet sufficiently developed
fibre plastic (GFRP) laminates ,preeminent sandwich to bond skins directly on to Honeycomb. The engineers
structure in mono core and multi core predicted. seeing the benefits of a lightweight expanded core with
Key words: Wing, Mono core, multi core, composite, integral skins, carried on with the development of using end
honeycomb, FEM, MSC Nastran and Patran grain balsa as a core, bonded to plywood skins. This
particular sandwich or bonded structure was used extensively
I. INTRODUCTION on the Mosquito and Vampire Aircraft. The development of
Epoxy Resin made possible the bonding of aluminium skins
A wing is a surface used to produce an aerodynamic force
to Aluminium Honeycomb. Since then many developments
normal to the direction of motion by traveling in air or another
in the Honeycomb field have taken place. One of the most
gaseous medium, facilitating flight. It is a specific form of air
common materials used in Aircraft structures today is Nomex
foil. The first use of the word was for the foremost limbs of
Honeycomb. One such development is the Fibrelam Panel
birds, but has been extended to Include the wings of insects,
which has a Nomex Honeycomb core with integral epoxy
bats and pterosaurs and also man-made devices. A wing is an
glass skins.
extremely efficient device for generating lift. Its aerodynamic
This type of construction consists of thin two facing
quality, expressed as a Lift-to-drag ratio, can be up to 60 on
layers separated by a core material. Potential materials for
some gliders and even more. This means that a significantly
sandwich facings are aluminium alloys, high tensile steels,
smaller thrust force can be applied to propel the wing through
titanium and composites depending on the specific mission
the air in order to obtain a specified lift. The most common
requirement. Several types of core shapes and core material
use of wings is to fly by deflecting air downwards to produce
have been applied to the construction of sandwich structures.
lift, but upside-down wings are also commonly used as a way
Among them, the honeycomb core that consists of very thin
to produce down force and hold objects to the ground.
foils in the form of hexagonal cells perpendicular to the
The wing loading is the weight of the aircraft
facings is the most popular.
divided by the area of the reference wing. As with the thrust
A sandwich composite construction provides
to weight ratio, the term “wing loading” normally refers to
excellent structural efficiency, i.e., with high ratio of strength
the take-off wing loading, but can also refer to combat and
to weight. Other advantages offered by sandwich composite
other flight conditions. Wing loading affects stall speed,
construction are elimination of welding, superior insulating
climb rate, take-off and landing distances, and turn
qualities and design versatility. Even if the concept of
performance. The wing loading determines the design lift
sandwich composite construction is not very new, it has
coefficient, and impacts drag through its effect upon wetted
primarily been adopted for non-strength part of structures in
area and wing span. Wing loading has a strong effect upon
the last decade. This is because there are a variety of problem
sized aircraft take-off gross weight. If the wing loading is
areas to be overcome when the sandwich composite
reduced, the wing is larger. This may improve performance,
construction is applied to design of dynamically loaded
but the additional drag and empty weight due to the larger
structures. To enhance the attractiveness of sandwich
wing will increase take-off gross weight to perform the
construction, it is thus essential to better understand the local
mission.
strength characteristic of individual sandwich panel/beam

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 Structural Analysis of Aircraft Wing J Nose Panel using Mono and Multi Core Composite Materials
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 03/2018/038)

members. The conventional single skin structure, which is of C. Panel Buckling

single plates reinforced with main frames and stiffeners The core thickness and shear modulus must be adequate to
normally necessitates a fair amount of welding, and has a prevent the panel from buckling under end compression
considerable length of weld seams. Further, the lighter but loads.
thinner plates employed tend to increase weld distortions that
may in some cases require more fabrication work to rectify.
More weld seams also mean a greater number of fatigue
initiation locations as well. Honeycomb sandwich
Construction, with a honeycomb core is sandwiched by two
outer facing skins is better able to cope with such difficulties.
Sandwich composite panels also provide added
structural weight savings in the structure. It is for these Fig. 4: Buckling under end compression
reasons that the sandwich construction has been widely D. Shear Crimping
adopted for large weight critical structures. Honeycomb-
The core thickness and shear modulus must be adequate to
cored sandwich composite panels have been used as strength
prevent the core from prematurely failing in shear under end
members of satellites or aircraft, thus efficiently reducing
compression loads.
their structural weight. In the railroad industry, passenger
coaches of high-speed trains such as the TGV have been
designed and fabricated using honeycomb sandwich panels.
Recently, attempts to use sandwich panels as strength
members of high-speed vessel hulls have also been made.
A. Sandwich Panel Loads
An aircraft is subjected to a variety of loads during its
operational life, Fig. 5: shear under end compression load
E. Skin Wrinkling
The compressive modulus of the facing skin and the core
compression strength must both be high enough to prevent a
skin wrinkling failure.

Fig. 2: Deflection of a sandwich panel

The deflection of a sandwich panel is made up from
bending and shears components. The bending deflection is
dependent on the relative tensile and compressive module of
the skin materials. The shear deflection is dependent on the
shear modulus of the core. Fig. 6: skin wrinkling

B. Honeycomb F. Wing Spars

The skin and core materials should be able to withstand the Wing Spars are the principal structural members of the wing.
tensile, compressive and shear stresses induced by the design Correspond to the longerons of the fuse lage. They run
load. Possible failure modes in a sandwich column under parallel to the lateral axis of the aircraft, from the fuselage
axial compression include facing compressive failure, facing toward the tip of the wing, and are usually attached to the
wrinkling, global buckling and core shear instability. Core fuselage by wing fittings, plain beams,
compressive failure is unlikely because of its low stiffness
and high ultimate (yield) strain. Because of the much higher
stiffness of the facing material, the axial compressive stress
in the facing is given by The skin to core adhesive must be
capable of transferring the shear stresses between skin and
core.

Fig. 7: Wing Spar

G. Monolithic
A monolithic structural panel comprising skin, and frame and
Fig. 3: skin compression failure
stinger members attached to the skin, where in each of the

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 Structural Analysis of Aircraft Wing J Nose Panel using Mono and Multi Core Composite Materials
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 03/2018/038)

frame members, stringer members and skin is formed of a Composite Sandwich Panel Under Static Four Point Bending
fiber-reinforced composite material, and where in Inter Load’ carried out work that, the modelling approach to
sections between the frame and stringer members include predict response of composite sandwich panels under static
cross-plied laminate of fiber-reinforced composite material bending conditions. Different models including 2D and 3D
with orthotropic material properties were attempted in
advanced finite element (FE) software Ansys. Comparison of
FE model predictions with experimental data on sandwich
panel bending properties helped in establishing appropriate
modelling approach. Analytical solutions were also used to
verify the some of the mechanical properties such as bending
stress and shear stress with the FEM results. For this study
nomax flex core is used as a core material (thickness 15mm)
and carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite (thickness
Fig. 8: Monolithic 1.2mm each) is used as face sheet material. The experimental
H. Inter rivet buckling load of sandwich panels was taken and applied in steps
Inter rivet buckling is particularly challenging, since physical through FEM and compared the results with experimental one
and geometrical non-linearity needs to be modelled together at all steps.
with rivet contact behaviour, in order to obtain realistic From their work we observed that the combined
results. Finite element modeling and experimental analysis of Carbon
fibre composite sandwich panel. The core consists of Nomax
honey comb structure presented in between top and bottom
face laminate. The emphasis of this study is on evaluation of
deflection, bending stress and shear stress response under
static four point bending condition. The 2D and 3D FE model
predictions correlate with experimental results of Sandwich
specimen. The predicted deflection in this study is success
fully matching the response of CFC sandwich panels. The 3D
FE model under static loading condition is closely matching
with experimental

III. METHODOLOGY
Finite element method is a numerical technique for solving
engineering problems. It is most powerful analysis tool used
to solve simple to complicated problems. The pre-processing
stage involves the preparation of nodal coordinates & its
connectivity, meshing the model, load & boundary conditions
and material information for finite element models. The
Fig. 9: Numerical model of the inter rivet buckling problem processing stage involves stiffness generation, modification
and solution of equations resulting in the evaluation of nodal
variables, run in MSC NASTRAN. The post-processing stage
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
deals with the presentation of results, typically the deformed
K.Kantha Rao, K. Jayathirtha Rao, A.G.Sarwade, M.Sarath configurations, elemental stresses and forces.
Chandra, in there paper ‘Strength Analysis on Honeycomb
Sandwich Panels of different Materials’ carried out the work A. Description of Problem
that, Aluminium sandwich construction is a concept for Sandwich panel of size 700 mm x 75 mm x 20 mm, under
structural design of light weight systems such as wings of uniform static four point bending, tensile, compression and
aircraft. A sandwich construction, which consists of two thin shear loading considered. The sandwich panel consists of 2
facing layers separated by a thick core, offers various layers of face sheets (Glass fiber reinforced polymer
advantages for design of weight critical structure. Depending composites), with ply 1 has 0.3 mm thickness & ply 2 has 0.1
on the specific mission requirements of the structures, mm thickness and core (Mono and Multi core) is present
aluminium alloys, high tensile steels, titanium or composites between top and bottom face sheets which has 19.2 mm
are used as the material of facings skins. Several core shapes (Mono-core) and 9.4 mm (Multi-core) thickness. The face
and material may be utilized in the construction of sandwich plate laid stacking sequence is [0/90]. A sandwich panel that
among them it has been known that the aluminium consists of GFRP face sheets and Nomax Flex core has been
honeycomb core has excellent properties with regard to considered for the analysis
weight savings and fabrication costs. This paper is
B. FEA Approach
theoretically calculate Strength Analysis on Honeycomb
Sandwich Panels of different materials Composite sandwich panel consists of face sheet and
M.M. Venugopal1, S K Maharana2, K S honeycomb core. The objective of this study is to develop a
Badarinarayan in there paper ‘Finite Element Evaluation of modeling approach to predict response of composite
sandwich panels under static bending, tensile, compression

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 Structural Analysis of Aircraft Wing J Nose Panel using Mono and Multi Core Composite Materials
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 03/2018/038)

and shear conditions. Different models including Mono-core E. Observations

and Multi-core were modeled in advanced finite element Displacements reduce on increasing the numbers of cores and
software increasing the number of ply layers adds stiffness
C. Four Point Bending 1) Tensile test
Composite sandwich panel consists of face sheet and
1) Test FEA Set-up of Bending Test
honeycomb core. The objective of this study is to develop a
Material Ply Core modeling approach to predict response of composite
E11, Mpa 28800 1 sandwich panels under static face tension loading. Different
E22, Mpa 28800 1 models including Mono-core and Multi-core were modeled in
advanced finite element analysis software.
E33, Mpa 28800 240
FEA Set-up of Tension Test (Loads and BCs) For
G12, Mpa 3000 1 Mono core and multicore Sandwich Panel
G23, Mpa 337 30 2) Modal
G13, Mpa 3000 48
v12 0.13 0.5
v23 0.01 0.0
v13 0.13 0.0 Fig. 6:
Table 1: Material properties of composite sandwich panel Boundary condition; tensile load of 100, 200, 300 & 400 kg
D. FEM Model is applied concentrically at the top face and the bottom face
is constrained in directions x, y & z.

Fig. 7: Tensile Load applications and boundary condition-

Mono Core and Multi core
F. Tensile testing Result

Fig. 3: Modelling of composite sandwich panel

Fig. 9: Deflection plot of composite sandwich panel

Monocore and Multicore
Fig. 4: Load applications and boundary condition Mono
Core and Multi core

Fig. 10: Stress-Z plot of composite sandwich panel –

Monocore and Multicore
G. Observations
Fig. 5: Deflection plot of composite sandwich panel Mono
core and Multi core The difference between the Monocore and Multicore is
minimal. Multicore has 2.1% more stiffness than Mono core.
The load is applied as incremental tension force
from 0.01-0.03*h0/min to the specimen until the face sheet
separates from the core. Here the enforced displacement is
applied in increment of 0.01*h0 mm.
Tensile strength of Phenol resin adhesive is 50MPa.
Hence the enforced displacement is applied little beyond the
allowable tensile strength of adhesive.

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 Structural Analysis of Aircraft Wing J Nose Panel using Mono and Multi Core Composite Materials
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 03/2018/038)

The maximum tensile force applied on the specimen L. Shear Test

to reach 50MPa tensile stress for Monocore is 124957 N & Composite sandwich panel consists of face sheet and
Multicore is 127592 N. honeycomb core. The objective of this study is to develop a
H. Compression modeling approach to predict response of composite
sandwich panels under static shear loading. Different models
Composite sandwich panel consists of face sheet and
including Mono-core and Multi-core were modeled in
honeycomb core. The objective of this study is to develop a
advanced finite element analysis software.
modeling approach to predict response of composite
sandwich panels under static compression loading. Different M. Shear Test set-up
models including Mono-core and Multi-core were modeled in The Shear Test composite sandwich panel of size 200 mm x
advanced finite element analysis software. 50 mm x 20 mm, under uniform static loading was
1) FEA Set-up of Compression Test (Loads and BCs) For considered. The sandwich panel consists of 2 layers of face
Monocore and Multicore Sandwich Panel sheets, with 0.4 mm thickness and core (Mono and Multi
core) is present between top and bottom face sheets which has
19.2 mm (Mono-core) and 9.4 mm (Multi-core) thickness.
Below figure shows Shear Test set-up and specimen
dimensions

I. Boundary Conditions
Compressive load of 100, 200, 300 & 400 kg is applied
concentrically at the top face and the bottom face is
constrained in directions x, y & z.

N. Shear Test set-up and specimen dimensions

The Shear test composite sandwich panel is modeled
Fig. 11: Loads and boundary conditions for Load case
according to DIN 53 294. One end of the sandwich panel is
(compressive load of 100kg).
constrained and other end is loaded diagonally as per
J. Compression Test Results experimental set-up. Co-ordinate 1 is created at a distance and
angle as per the DIN 53 294. Cutting plates are modeled with
high modulus. Rigid body elements 2 are used to transfer the
load to the plates.
O. Shear Test Result

Fig. 12: Deflection plot of composite sandwich panel

Monocore and Multicore

Fig. 14: Deflection plot of composite sandwich panel–

Monocore and Multicore(compression)

Fig. 13: Stress-Z plot of composite sandwich panel –

Monocore and Multicore
K. Observations
The difference between the Monocore and Multicore is
minimal. Multicore has 2.23% stiffer than Mono core, since
the specimen is subjected to compressive load, core will Fig. 15: Deflection plot of composite sandwich panel –
rupture once it reaches maximum compressive strength, Monocore and Multicore(tensile)
Compressive strength of the core is 2.1 MPa, hence the
specimen will be able to take approximately 530 – 533 Kg

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 Structural Analysis of Aircraft Wing J Nose Panel using Mono and Multi Core Composite Materials
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 03/2018/038)

specimen. Displacements reduce on increasing the numbers

of cores. Due to increasing in number of ply layers which
adds to stiffness

REFERENCE
[1] M.M. Venugopal, S K Maharana, K S Badarinarayan,
“Finite Element Evaluation of Composite Sandwich
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IV. CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions were given for Finite Element
analysis for J-nose panel of an aircraft wing. Paper presents a
combined structural analysis of glass fiber composite
sandwich Monocore and Multicore panel. under static 4-point
bending test, tension test, compression test and shear test,
Monocore and Multicore panel consists of honey comb
structure presented in between top and bottom face laminate.
Emphasis of this study is on evaluation of deflection and
stress, under static four point bending load, tensile load,
compression load, shear load condition. Engross behaviour of
mono core and multi core panel, Multicore has stiffer than
Mono core. With finite element analysis results of Sandwich

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