Combined and interactive effects of interference fit and preloads on composite joints

The combined and interactive effects of the bolt-hole fit conditions and the preloads of the fasteners on the load carrying capacity of single-lap composite-to-titanium bolted joints have been investigated both experimentally and numerically. Quasi-static tests of the hybrid joints with different fit conditions are implemented, and a three dimensional finite element progressive failure analysis model is proposed to predict the influences of the bolt-hole fit conditions and fastener＇s pre- loads on the mechanical behaviors of the joints. Based on the experimental validated simulation method, a multi-factor, mixed levels orthogonal design table and the analysis of variance method are used to arrange the simulation conditions and to further study the interactive effects of preloads and fit conditions. Through the analysis of the results, for the researched double bolt, single-lap composite-titanium joints, it is found that： the effects of both the interference fit and the preloads change from positive into negative mode with the increase of the interference fit values or preload values; appropriate bolt-hole fit conditions and preloads can improve the bolt-hole contact conditions of the loaded joints, and then retard the fiber failures around the fastener holes, and increase the load carrying capacity of the joints eventually; the interactive effect of the bolt-hole interference fit conditions and preloads cannot be ignored and the parameters need to be considered together and synthetically as the joints are being optimized.     

Aerodynamic Interactions Between Contralateral Wings and Between Wings and Body of a Model Insect at Hovering and Small Speed Motions

In this paper, we study the aerodynamic interactions between the contralateral wings and between the body and wings of a model insect, when the insect is hovering and has various translational and rotational motions, using the method numerically solving the Navier-Stokes equations over moving overset grids. The aerodynamic interactional effects are identified by compar-ing the results of a complete model insect, the corresponding wing pair, single wing and body without the wings. Horizontal, vertical and lateral translations and roll, pitch and yaw rotations at small speeds are considered. The results indicate that for the motions considered, both the interaction between the contralateral wings and the interaction between the body and wings are weak. The changes in the forces and moments of a wing due to the contralateral wing interaction, of the wings due to the pres-ence of the body, and of the body due to the presence of the wings are generally less than 4.5%. Results show that aerodynamic forces of wings and body can be measured or computed separately in the analysis of flight stability and control of hovering in-sects.     

Combustor design and performance prediction based on parametric model

By combining the three-dimensional model software and grid generation software, the combustor parametric model and high quality and high speed gridding in the full flow field has been realized. Based on the research of the parametric modeling, an optimizing design, CFD analysis and performance prediction of the combustor have been accomplished, and the rule of the combustor performance variation with structural parameters was presented. The results show that the combustor capability has no significant change with the radial swirler parameters and the primary holes area. The combustor capability has significant change with position and profile of the primary holes and dilution holes, and the combustor outlet temperature profile and emission change greatly when the total hole area of the burnerinnerliner changes. The parametric model method is helpful to provide a fast design method for the aero-engine combustor design.      

Flight dynamics modeling of a small ducted fan aerial vehicle based on parameter identifcation

This paper presents a simple and useful modeling method to acquire a dynamics model of an aerial vehicle containing unknown parameters using mechanism modeling,and then to design different identifcation experiments to identify the parameters based on the sources and features of its unknown parameters.Based on the mathematical model of the aerial vehicle acquired by modeling and identifcation,a design for the structural parameters of the attitude control system is carried out,and the results of the attitude control flaps are verifed by simulation experiments and flight tests of the aerial vehicle.Results of the mathematical simulation and flight tests show that the mathematical model acquired using parameter identifcation is comparatively accurate and of clear mechanics,and can be used as the reference and basis for the structural design.     

Fault diagnosis and isolation of the component and sensor for aircraft engine

Aircraft engine component and sensor fault detection and isolation approach was proposed,which included fault type detection module and component-sensor simultaneous fault isolation module. The approach can not only distinguish among sensor fault, component fault and component-sensor simultaneous fault, but also isolate and locate sensor fault and the type of engine component fault when the engine component fault and the sensor faults occur simultaneously. The double-threshold mechanism has been proposed, in which the fault diagnostic threshold changed with the sensor type and the engine condition, and it greatly improved the accuracy and robustness of sensor fault diagnosis system. Simulation results show that the approach proposed can diagnose and isolate the sensor and engine component fault with improved accuracy. It effectively improves the fault diagnosis ability of aircraft engine.      

Stability analysis of an aeroelastic system with friction

In this paper, harmonic balance method, exact formulation and numerical simulation method are adopted to study the effects of different friction stiffness on the stability of 1.5 degrees of freedom aeroelastic system. On this basis, the expressions of input energy and dissipated energy are deduced, and the energy method is used to reveal the mechanisms of the stable boundary and unstable boundary existing in the system and the effects of different friction stiffness on the stability of the system. Studies have shown that the stability region and the critical aerodynamic damping ratio of the system rise with the increase of the friction stiffness, while the friction stiffness has little effect on the stability boundary. In the analysis of the stability of system, the results of harmonic balance method, exact formulation and Newmark of numerical simulation method are in good agreement. Compared with exact formulation and numerical simulation method, the concept and conclusion of harmonic balance method are simple in the system stability analysis.     

A novel method for importance measure analysis in the presence of epistemic and aleatory uncertainties

For structural systems with both epistemic and aleatory uncertainties, research on quantifying the contribution of the epistemic and aleatory uncertainties to the failure probability of the systems is conducted. Based on the method of separating epistemic and aleatory uncertainties in a variable, the core idea of the research is firstly to establish a novel deterministic transition model for auxiliary variables, distribution parameters, random variables, failure probability, then to propose the improved importance sampling(IS) to solve the transition model. Furthermore,the distribution parameters and auxiliary variables are sampled simultaneously and independently;therefore, the inefficient sampling procedure with an ‘‘inner-loop' for epistemic uncertainty and an‘‘outer-loop' for aleatory uncertainty in traditional methods is avoided. Since the proposed method combines the fast convergence of the proper estimates and searches failure samples in the interesting regions with high efficiency, the proposed method is more efficient than traditional methods for the variance-based failure probability sensitivity measures in the presence of epistemic and aleatory uncertainties. Two numerical examples and one engineering example are introduced for demonstrating the efficiency and precision of the proposed method for structural systems with both epistemic and aleatory uncertainties.     

A model for discrimination and prediction of mental workload of aircraft cockpit display interface

With respect to the ergonomic evaluation and optimization in the mental task design of the aircraft cockpit display interface, the experimental measurement and theoretical modeling of mental workload were carried out under flight simulation task conditions using the performance evaluation, subjective evaluation and physiological measurement methods. The experimental results show that with an increased mental workload, the detection accuracy of flight operation significantly reduced and the reaction time was significantly prolonged; the standard deviation of R-R intervals（SDNN） significantly decreased, while the mean heart rate exhibited little change; the score of NASA_TLX scale significantly increased. On this basis, the indexes sensitive to mental workload were screened, and an integrated model for the discrimination and prediction of mental workload of aircraft cockpit display interface was established based on the Bayesian Fisher discrimination and classification method. The original validation and cross-validation methods were employed to test the accuracy of the results of discrimination and prediction of the integrated model, and the average prediction accuracies determined by these two methods are both higher than 85%. Meanwhile, the integrated model shows a higher accuracy in discrimination and prediction of mental workload compared with single indexes. The model proposed in this paper exhibits a satisfactory coincidence with the measured data and could accurately reflect the variation characteristics of the mental workload of aircraft cockpit display interface, thus providing a basis for the ergonomic evaluation and optimization design of the aircraft cockpit display interface in the future.     

Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Various Plasma Actuator Configurations on Lift and Drag Coefficients of a Circular Cylinder Including the Effects of Electrodes

In this paper, the effects of the existence of plasma actuator electrodes and also various configurations of the actuator for controlling the flow field around a circular cylinder are experimentally investigated. The cylinder is made of PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) and considered as a dielectric barrier. Two electrodes are flush-mounted on the surface of the cylinder and are connected to a DC high voltage power supply for generation of electrical discharge. Pressure distribution results show that the existence of the electrodes and also the plasma are able to change the pressure distribution around the cylinder and consequently the lift and drag coefficients. It is found that the effect of the existence of the electrodes is comparable with the effect of plasma actuator in controlling the flow field around the cylinder and this effect is not reported by other researchers. Eventually it is concluded that the existence of the electrodes or any extra objects on the cylinder and also the existence of the plasma are capable of changing the flow field structure around the cylinder so that the behavior of the lift and drag coefficients of the cylinder will be changed significantly.     

Random Weighting Estimation Method for Dynamic Navigation Positioning

This paper presents a new random weighting estimation method for dynamic navigation positioning.This method adopts the concept of random weighting estimation to estimate the covariance matrices of system state noises and observation noises for controlling the disturbances of singular observations and the kinematic model errors.It satisfies the practical requirements of the residual vector and innovation vector to sufficiently utilize observation information,thus weakening the disturbing effect of the kinematic model error and observation model error on the state parameter estimation.Theories and algorithms of random weighting estimation are established for estimating the covariance matrices of observation residual vectors and innovation vectors.This random weighting estimation method provides an effective solution for improving the positioning accuracy in dynamic navigation.Experimental results show that compared with the Kalman filtering,the extended Kalman filtering and the adaptive windowing filtering,the proposed method can adaptively determine the covariance matrices of observation error and state error,effectively resist the disturbances caused by system error and observation error,and significantly improve the positioning accuracy for dynamic navigation.     

Advances and trends in plastic forming technologies for welded tubes

With the implementation of environmental protection, sustainable development and conservation-oriented policies, components and parts of thin-walled welded tubes have gained increasing application in the aircraft and automotive industries because of their advantages: easily achieving forming and manufacturing process at low cost and in a short time. The current research on welded tube plastic forming is mainly concentrated on tube internal high-pressure forming, tube bending forming, and tube spinning forming. The focuses are on the material properties and characterization of welded tubes, finite element modeling for welded tube forming, and inhomogeneous deformation behavior and the mechanism and rules of deformation coordination in welded tube plastic forming. This paper summarizes the research progress in welded tube plastic forming from these aspects. Finally, with a focus on the urgent demand of the aviation, aerospace and automotive industries for high-strength and light-weight tubes, this paper discusses the development trends and challenges in the theory and technology of welded tube plastic forming in the future. Among them,laser tailor-welded technology will find application in the manufacture of high-strength steel tubes.Tube-end forming technology, such as tube flaring and flanging technology, will expand its application in welded tubes. Therefore, future studies will focus on the FE modeling regarding how to consider effects of welding on residual stresses, welding distortions and microstructure, the inhomogeneous deformation and coordination mechanism of the plastic forming process of tailor-welded tubes, and some end-forming processes of welded tubes, and more comprehensive research on the forming mechanism and limit of welded tubes.     

An improved procedure for manufacture of 3D tubes with springback concerned in flexible bending process

Three dimensional (3D) tubes, which possess the characteristics of space saving, lightweight and high strength, are widely used in many high-end industries such as aviation, aerospace, automobile and shipbuilding. However, when manufacturing a 3D tube in flexible bending process, springback is a big obstacle for improving the forming quality. In this paper, a new comprehensive strategy for springback control of 3D tubes is proposed. The strategy can be described as follows: (1) define the desired shape and manufacture shape; (2) optimize the manufacture shape using two tooling design methods (e.g. DA (displacement adjustment) method and B&T (bending and twisting) method presented in this paper); (3) make a discretization of the manufacture shape to acquire the optimized forming parameters. Additionally, experiment is implemented to validate the effectiveness of the new strategy. Results show that forming parameters acquired by the new strategy are partially effective. The new strategy also demonstrates that, during 3D tubes forming, the deviation caused by over-bent elements can be counteracted by the deficient-bent elements. This principle is helpful to reduce the difficulty of parameter determination in future.     

Cross-sectional deformation behavior of double-ridged rectangular tube with fillers in different stages of H-typed bending

The bent double-ridged rectangular tube (DRRT) with high forming quality is helpful to improve the microwave transmission accuracy. For reducing the cross-sectional deformation in the H-typed bending process, in addition to using rigid mandrel to support the inside of tube, ridge groove fillers are also added to restrict the deformation of ridge grooves. Because of the change of stress and strain state of bent tube in bending, rigid mandrel retracting and specially twice-springback stages, and the springback of fillers, the cross-sectional deformation of tube in each stage may be different. Therefore, based on the ABAQUS platform, the finite element models (FEM) for H-typed bending, mandrel retracting and twice-springback stages of H96 DRRT with fillers were established and validated. It is found that, for the height and width deformation of tube and spacing deformation of ridge grooves, retraction of mandrel can make the distribution of these deformations more uniform along the bending direction. The first springback can reduce these deformations significantly, which should be emphasized. But the second springback only increases them by less amount, which can be ignored. The smaller height deformation of ridge groove and filler can be neglected.     

Advances and challenges on springback control for creep age forming of aluminum alloy

Creep age forming (CAF) is an advanced forming technology that combines creep deformation and age hardening processes. When compared with the conventional forming technologies including roll bending and shot-peen forming, CAF has many advantages of low residual stress, excellent dimensional stability, good service performance and short production cycle. It is an optimal technique for precise manufacturing for shape and properties of large-scale complicated thin-walled components of light-weight and high strength aluminum alloys in the aviation and aerospace industries. Nevertheless, CAF has an inevitable disadvantage that a large amount of springback occurs after unloading, which brings a challenge on the accurate shape forming and property tailoring of components. Therefore, how to achieve accurate prediction and control of springback has always been a bottleneck hindering the development of CAF to more industrial applications. After the factors of affecting springback and measures of reducing springback are summarized from the internal and external aspects, constitutive models for predicting springback and springback compensation methods for CAF of aluminum alloy panel components are reviewed. Then, a review of research progresses on tool design for CAF is presented. Finally, in view of the key issue that it is difficult to predict and control the shape and properties of components during CAF, the technical challenges are discussed and future development trends of CAF are prospected.     

非耦合韧性断裂准则及其在航空金属材料中的应用

结构轻量化是航空航天和汽车领域的重要发展趋势,对以铝合金、镁合金和钛合金为代表的轻质高强金属材料的需求与日俱增。预测材料的损伤断裂行为是高性能航空构件成形工艺设计和服役性能评估的关键,而发展先进的韧性断裂准则是其主要途径。本文首先介绍了金属材料损伤断裂的微观机制,包括剪切和压缩应力主导的剪切型断裂、拉应力主导的拉伸型断裂及复合型断裂。回顾了韧性断裂准则的研究现状,传统非耦合韧性断裂准则的发展历程、特点和适用场合,重点论述了近年来几种典型的非耦合韧性断裂准则的特点和优势。传统的非耦合韧性断裂准则通常只考虑最大主应力或平均应力对损伤断裂的影响,忽略了偏应力的作用,不适合于低应力三轴度或复杂应力状态下的断裂行为预测;而新的韧性断裂准则综合考虑应力三轴度和罗德角参数对损伤演化的共同影响,适用于复杂的应变路径和应力状态。最后,评述了非耦合韧性断裂准则在铝合金、镁合金和钛合金等航空金属材料中的发展现状和典型应用,展望了韧性断裂准则的发展趋势和研究方向。非耦合韧性断裂准则需针对先进结构金属材料的变形特点,综合考虑应力状态、应变速率、温度及各向异性等对损伤断裂的作用,使其具有更好的普适性和预测精度。     

‘Size effect’ related bending formability of thin-walled aluminum alloy tube

Aluminum alloy (Al-alloy) thin-walled (D/t > 20, diameter D, wall thickness t) bent tubes have attracted increasing applications in many industries with mass quantities and diverse specifications due to satisfying high strength to weigh ratio requirements of product manufacturing. However, due to nonlinear nature of bending with coupling effects of multiple factors, the similarity theory seems not applicable and there occurs a challenge for efficient and reliable evaluation of the bending formability of thin-walled tube with various bending specifications. Considering the unequal deformation and three major instabilities, the bending formability of thin-walled Al-alloy tube in changing tube sizes such as D and t are clarified via both the analytical and FE modeling/ simulations. The experiments of rotary draw bending are conducted to validate the theoretical models and further confirm ’size effect’ related bending formability. The major results show that (1) The anti-wrinkling capability of tube decreases with the larger D and smaller t, and the effect significance of t is larger than that of D even under rigid supports; (2) The wall thinning increases with the larger D and smaller t, and this tendency becomes much more obvious under rigid supports; (3) The cross-section deformation increases with the larger D and smaller t according to the analytical model obtained intrinsic relationship, while this tendency becomes opposite due to the nonlinear role of mandrel die; (4) The size factor D/t can be used as a nondimensional index to evaluate both the bending formability regarding the wall thinning and cross-section deformation.     

铝锂合金超塑成形/扩散连接技术研究进展

轻量化材料与结构是现代航空航天工业的发展方向。铝锂合金密度小,比强度、比弹性模量高,是理想的航空航天材料。采用超塑成形/扩散连接工艺成形的空心夹层结构零件具有整体性好、设计自由度大、成形精度高、无残余应力等优点,而且能够大幅减重、降低成本,广泛应用于航空航天领域。针对航空航天领域对新一代复杂多层结构件整体化和轻量化的迫切需求,回顾了国内外铝锂合金的发展历程,介绍了国内外铝锂合金超塑成形、扩散连接以及超塑成形/扩散连接组合技术的发展现状及其在航空航天领域的应用,指出铝锂合金表面致密稳定氧化膜是阻碍其扩散连接接头质量提升的瓶颈问题,讨论去除铝锂合金表面的氧化层以及防止新的氧化层再生的相关工艺与机理,最后展望了铝锂合金超塑成形/扩散连接技术在航空航天领域的应用前景以及未来研究方向。     

B/Al复合材料的制造、性能及应用

综述了国内外B/Al复合材料的发展研究现状 ,具体介绍了几种制备技术的基本原理和工艺 ,包括热压扩散法、熔体浸渗法等。从工艺的角度分析了复合工艺参数———温度、时间、压力和环境对B/Al复合材料及对B纤维的影响。对B/Al复合材料的力学性能和在航空航天等方面的应用也做了较为系统的介绍 ,分析认为国内采用热压扩散法制备的B/Al复合材料性能稳定 ,其管材、型材已达到了应用阶段 ,为我国航空航天技术中应用此类复合材料奠定了基础     

航天用轻质结构材料研究进展及应用需求

从轻质金属和复合材料出发,简要介绍了航天用几大主要轻质结构材料国内外研究进展,并在此基础上,结合航天的应用需求,浅析了轻质结构材料的研究和发展方向。