Paper number 299

MANUFACTURE A BEND-TWIST COUPLED BEAM

Cheng Huat Ong , Julie Wang and Stephen W. Tsai

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4035, USA.

Summary This paper describes a manufacturing process to fabricate a bend-twist coupled beam and presents the tensile test results of three joint designs related to the anisotropic beam fabrication. To make a successful anisotropic (bend-twist coupled) beam, the joint design at the seam, where two clamshells which have symmetric lay-up meet, is very critical. The investigation looked into the advantages and disadvantages of three joint designs: butt joint, overlap joint and stagger-overlap joint. Among these designs, a stagger-overlap joint not only provides the smoothest skin thickness distribution but also has the highest joint strength retention. The retention strength at the joint depends on the ply orientation, the composition of a laminate, and the stacking sequence within it. One of the findings from the experiments is that the joint strength of a laminate which composes of 0°-plies and angle-plies and has the angle-plies at the outer layers is stronger than that of a laminate with the same plies composition but having 0°-plies at the outer layers.
Keywords bend-twist coupled, stagger-overlap joint, joint strength.

Theme : Processing, Integrated Design and Manufacturing ; Processing

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