AIRFRAME DESIGN AND REPAIRS

Outline for Course

This course is designed to familiarize liaison, design, and stress engineers with the concept of airframe design and repair. This includes the policy, considerations and data not ordinarily covered by standard textbooks or handbooks because today's airframe repair engineer must be familiar with not only detail design, but structural analysis as well. The course aims to provide a background of airframe structural design and post-design (including salvage, retrofit, repairs, modification, structural life extension, maintenance, etc.) while emphasizing practical and hands-on applications of metallic airframe structures. Instruction addresses structural problems involving thin-sheets of stiffened panels and fasteners, and buckling and crippling characteristics in airframe structures.
Structural repair methods are introduced for those who need to support aircraft structural maintenance and repairs and/or modification to meet aircraft safety and integrity standards. While both of the existing structural repair manuals for commercial aircraft and T.O. manuals for military aircraft merely give repair engineer simple and elementary repair methods to fix small damaged areas. The course also covers major repair jobs and/or modification work which would require attention from the aircraft manufacturer. Each repair must be treated as a unique problem, and not as a "universal" method.
Since most current airframe structures are constructed from aluminum materials, the scope of this course concentrates primarily on metallic structural design and repair.

Prerequisites for Course

Some basic knowledge and background of structural analysis is desired.