Crack growth simulation of stiffened fuselage panels using XFEM techniques

Abstract

<span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-GB">In this paper, crack growth modelling and simulation of stiffened and un-stiffened fuselage panels has been presented using commercially available finite element software package. Computation of stress intensity factor for a single edge notch specimen has been computed using extended finite element method (XFEM), FEM and compared with the analytical solution. The geometric nonlinear and elastic-plastic (material nonlinear) analysis has been performed on a specimen, stiffened and un-stiffened fuselage panels. XFEM techniques like cohesive segment and XFEM based LEFM using virtual crack closure technique (VCCT) are used for crack growth analysis. Various crack domain selection and parametric studies of stiffener thickness are presented. It is observed from the numerical analyses that the stiffened panels have about 20% higher yield strength compared to the un-stiffened panel.

</span>