Abstract:
In the last few decades, new design concepts and manufacture processes have
been developed in order to reduce the maintenance and manufacturing costs,
and structural weight of aircraft components. The integral metallic structure
with welding processes is one of the most promising solutions. The exclusion of
fasteners and overlapping joints in the airframe reduces the costs, the weight, and
eliminates stress concentrations near the holes. The research and development
of welding processes for large civil aircraft is in the early stages, thus assessment
of their impact on damage tolerance (DT) design must be carried out before the
technology can be applied for large civil aircraft. Cont/d.