Experimental Tests and Numerical Analyses of Fiber Metal Laminate Panels under Shear Load with Bonded Window Frame

Experimental and numerical activities have been developed to investigate the behavior of Fiber metal laminates (FML) shear loaded panels having a bonded window frame. Both static and fatigue tests have been carried out at the Department of Aerospace Engineering of Pisa on 10 panels manufactured by Alenia Aeronautica, in the context of the DIALFAST (Development of Innovative and Advanced Laminates for Future Aircraft Structures) project, co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme. In addition to technological problems, the tested specimens represent very critical components, involving fundamental aspects of the structural design of fuselage panels; in particular, the primary interest to exploit the postbuckling behavior of FML components, as commonly applied in conventional aluminum alloy fuselage structures, is associated with the effort of making reinforced holes which do not alter significantly the stress distribution of the main body of the panel. Detailed finite element analyses, performed by means of the ABAQUS V 6.5 package, have been used to investigate the panel response during testing. The numerical results have shown a very good agreement with the experimental data, thus revealing an effective instrument to study the behavior of a postbuckled shear panel, in presence of the neutral hole issue.