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Probabilistic Design of Damage Tolerant Composite Aircraft Structures

The present document describes the efforts under Memorandum of Cooperation between the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), USA, and the Central Aero—Hydrodynamic Institute
(TsAGI), Russian Federation. Under this effort, a methodology for calculating reliability of
composite aircraft structures was developed and is contained in the software Probabilistic Design
of Damage Tolerant Composite Structures (ProDeCompoS). In addition, background data culled
from Russian usage of composite aircraft structures was compiled to use with ProDeCompoS.
The data includes statistical data of damage occurrence, effectiveness of repair, and test data and
computational methods to determine residual strength for damaged composite laminate.

The methodology of the ProDeCompoS evaluates the statistically based probabilistic design to
improve structural efficiency of damage tolerant composite aircraft structures. It includes
databases and application programs that form an automated complex. The main target is to
provide designers, production engineers and analysts with an automated tool for determining and
ensuring damage tolerance at all stages of composite aircraft structural life—from preliminary
investigation to certification and service. The important goal was to attain specified levels of
safety and reliability with simultaneous observance of other feasibility requirements such as
structural weight, manufacturing cost, and maintenance cost.

The methodology and use of ProDeCompoS was demonstrated by calculating the reliability of
four composite components: a highly maneuverable MIG—29 fin, a transport TU—204 aileron, a
business jet Lear Fan—2100 wing, and an aerobatic SU—29 wing.

The robustness of ProDeCompoS was evaluated by a method which estimates the spread and
confidence intervals for failure probability in the analysis of the MIG-29 fin. The analysis
showed that the reliability estimates are quite stable for the range of expected variations of input
data.

The present document is the final report of the activities under Memorandum of Cooperation
between the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), USA, and the Central Aero—Hydrodynamic
Institute (TsAGI), Russian Federation. The report substantiates background data for calculating
reliability of composite aircraft structures by the methodology of Probabilistic Design of Damage
Tolerant Composite Structures (ProDeCompoS).