Global behaviour of a composite stiffened panel in buckling. Part 2: Experimental investigation

The present study analyses an aircraft composite fuselage structure manufactured by the Liquid Resin Infusion (LRI) process and subjected to a compressive load. LRI is based on the moulding of high performance composite parts by infusing liquid resin on dry fibres instead of prepreg fabrics or Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM). Actual industrial projects face composite integrated structure issues as a number of structures (stiffeners, ...) are more and more integrated onto the skins of aircraft fuselage. A post-buckling test of a composite fuselage representative panel is set up, from numerical results available in previous works. Two stereo Digital Image Correlation (DIC) systems are positioned on each side of the panel, that are aimed at correlating numerical and experimental out-of-plane displacements (corresponding to the skin local buckling displacements of the panel). First, the experimental approach and the test facility are presented. A post-mortem failure analysis is then performed with the help of Non-Destructive Techniques (NDT). X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) measurements and ultrasonic testing (US) techniques are able to explain the failure mechanisms that occured during this post-buckling test. Numerical results are validated by the experimental results. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.