Overview of Aerospace Structures
I am hesitant talking about what aerospace structures look like. Structures is like a
boundary-valued problem. You may have the equations, but unless you put constraints or
boundaries on the problem, in this case the loads, you can not do anything with them.
How can you design a structure without knowing the loads it has to support?
The structure’s job is to transfer loads from their point of application to the supports. The
way this is done is with load paths. The structure provides the load paths. So if you do
not know the loads that have to be carried, you do not know the loads path, and therefore
you really do not know what the structure should look like.
As is turns out, many aerospace vehicles experience the same types of loads, and certain
structural designs are good at carrying certain types of loads. So we expect to see similar
construction in a wide variety of designs. For the most part this is true. Only in extreme
cases where new concepts are being tested do we have to be careful and not assume what
the structure should look like.
That being said, let’s look at some typical aerospace structures.
The Space Frame
Although the structure shown to the left
is usually called a truss, trusses are only
one type of space frames. The lattice
frames used in the old airships like the
Hindenburg were also space frames.
Space frames can be characterized by
their relatively large size and open type
of construction.
Space frames were very popular in
aviation before the 1930's. Many of the
Gordon p 268 early aircraft were biplanes. At that
time, airfoils were extremely thin.
There was no room to put structure
inside. But people sure knew how to make bridges strong — you use a truss. As you can
see, wires take the shear forces resulting from bending and torsional loads place on the
wing. Fuselages also used this type of construction and were covered with fabric, the
fabric carrying little if any load.
Today in the radio-controlled aircraft world, fabric is usually placed over skin-stringer-
frame combinations. Although it will not take compression, the fabric takes tensions and
torsion fairly well. I have tried beating this type of construction with foam and fiberglass.
Properly constructed, the wood-fabric combination still wins in terms of weight. It would
be interesting to study why this is so. I suspect it is due to the light loading on these
small airplanes in comparison to their size. I am certain the foam-fiberglass construction
would win if the wing loading were much higher. This loading for a given overall size
turns out to be important for what type of structure to use.
It is noteworthy that many competition aerobatic and general aviation aircraft use the
space frame construction for their fuselages. I suppose this is more for ease of
construction than anything else. In modern times, we are seeing a rebirth of space
frames in structures meant to exist solely in space.
In Structures, or Why Things Don't Fall Down, Gordon states that space frames are
always lighter and usually cheaper than monocoque construction when the loads are
primarily compressive. For large, lightly loaded structures such as airships and hang
gliders, Gordon asserts that the space frame is the only practical structure.
On the down side, space-frames are less efficient than monocoque structures where the
loads are high in relation to the dimensions or where resisting shear and torsion is a
requirement.
Monocoque Structures
Monocoque means one piece. The idea behind this type of construction is that the loads
are high enough in comparison to the vehicle dimensions that all of the material can be
put into the skin.
Why? A common theme in aerospace construction is sizing for buckling. There are a
few instances where the actual stresses are important such as wings in bending, but the
majority of structures are buckling critical. To keep the skin from buckling under high
loads, the skin needs to be thick. After a certain point, it is also thick enough to take
primary compressive and tensile stresses as well.
So what makes semi-monocoque structures different? A visual inspection will show
many stiffeners attached to the skin in the form of stringers and frames (ribs).
Practicality dictates that many structures be larger than theoretically necessary. This is
usually the case when payload is being carried. What happens, say under a bending load,
is that the skin thickness decreases as the structure becomes larger because the applied
stresses go down. Once again the skin becomes buckling critical. To prevent this,
stiffeners are added. The stiffeners are also designed to take some of the loads.
There is an important concept to understand about this transition from monocoque to
semi-monocoque. This is illustrated in the following figures.
As the necessary skin thickness decreases, the requirement to resist buckling increases.
The transition from monocoque to semi-monocoque can be described as using the excess
skin material to form the stiffeners.
The transition from space frame construction to monocoque construction in the 1930s
was no accident. The demand for higher speeds led to a need for higher torsional and
stiffness requirements. Semi-monocoque structures are especially suited for taking
torsion because the skin itself serves as a structural component. The need for the higher
torsional stiffness resulted in the change from biplanes to monoplanes as speed became
more important. Torsional stiffness depends on the square of the area of the cross
section. In biplanes, the area includes the region between the wings, which can be rather
large. In monoplanes, the area is just the cross section of the airfoil.
The easiest way to view the function of ribs, frames, and stringers in a semi-monocoque
structure is that they support the skin. Without them, the skin of the fuselage, wings, or
tails would buckle even at moderate loads. This is not their only purpose though.
Stringers are usually busy resisting tensile and compressive loads resulting from bending
in the fuselage and wing. Frames also transmit forces into the structure whether they are
airloads on the wing or fuselage or point loads such as bombs. Rib is the name given to a
frame in a wing. Properly designed, this type of construction is efficient for the job it has
to do.
Shown on the following pages are examples of this type of construction. The dates on the
photographs range anywhere from the time of Rosie the Riveter through the Stealth
fighter and into the 1990s at Boeing.
References
J.E. Gordon. Structures or Why Things Don’t Fall Down. Da Capo Press, Inc. 1978.
Source unknown
Photos courtesy of Lockheed Martin
Photos courtesy of Boeing
Photo courtesy of Boeing
These types of structures are also seen outside of aerospace. The same type of construction is also used in ships. Nature uses
stiffeners in bamboo, grasses, and leaves. Both examples are shown below.
Gordon p 294
