Predicting fatigue crack growth life in integral metallic skin-stringer panels

During the past few years, in comparison to traditional riveted structures, integral metallic skin stringer structures have played more and more important roles in aircraft design due to the fact they are economical and also have the ability to reduce weight. Their wide application in aircraft, especially large integral structures is limited because of the fact that they have shortcomings in damage tolerance performance. Hence, calculating the crack growth lives and improving the damage tolerance performance of integral structures by selecting appropriate materials or choosing rational structures is a critical work. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to find effective analysis methods of integral metallic skin-stringer panels for the use in engineering. Cont/d.