Investigation on the Crashworthiness of a Composite Fuselage Barrel with Double–Double Designed Frames

Double–double (DD) laminates approach enables the design of mass-minimized composite structures with number and orientation of plies tailored on the acting loads. Thus, the investigation of the crashworthiness capabilities is crucial in assessing the airworthiness of DD designed structures. In this work, two composite fuselage barrel configurations with conventional and DD designed frames have been compared to study their crashworthiness performance during an impact event. Numerical results highlight that configurations with DD optimized frames exhibit performance in terms of crashworthiness and passive safety for passengers comparable to the one with conventional designed frames while reducing the structure's total mass by up to 13%. © 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.