Crack arrest capabilities in adhesively bonded skin and stiffener

Paper presented to the 5th Annual Symposium on Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects (GRASP) held at the Hughes Metropolitan Complex, Wichita State University, May 1, 2009.Research completed at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, College of EngineeringThe crack arrest capabilities and the load bearing characteristic of a stiffened and unstiffened panel subjected to uniform remote displacement field is examined in this paper. A four stringer stiffened wide panel is analyzed for a center crack, propagating towards the adjacent stringers. The linear elastic analyses indicated a decrease in stress intensity factor when the crack approaches the stiffener. The non-linear analysis with crack across the skin-stringer assembly indicated a reduction in strength relative to an unstiffened panel