This paper summarizes a series of small-scale tests carried out to evaluate and model the post-crash fire integrity of composite aircraft fuselage structures. The US Federal Aviation Administration regulations for the penetration of an external fuel fire into an aircraft cabin after crash require a burn-through period of 4 minutes (FAA § 25.856 Appendix F, Part VII). Different candidate structures for the next generation of composite aircraft fuselage, provided by Airbus, were investigated, including CFRP monolithic laminate and a folded-core CFRP sandwich. Those materials were subjected to constant heat flux from a propane gas burner, while being held under compressive load in a small, specially designed compression test rig with anti-buckling guides. The propane burner was calibrated to produce a constant heat flux up to 182 kW/m2. The sample time-tofailure was measured, along with the temperatures at various points through the thickness. Modelling the thermal and structural behaviour under load required the use of a modified version of the Henderson Equation, which describes heat transfer through composites under ablative fire conditions. This has been incorporated into the Com-Fire software model. Kinetic parameters for the resin decomposition reaction were determined from thermo-gravimetric data and other thermal parameters, conductivity and diffusivity were measured experimentally. The paper will compare the behaviour of single and double-skinned structures and will examine measured and modelled behaviour.


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    Title :

    Integrity of composite aircraft fuselage materials under crash fire conditions


    Additional title:

    Die Beständigkeit von Verbundwerkstoffen im Flugzeugrumpf unter den Bedingungen eines Feuers nach einer Kollision


    Contributors:
    Delfa, G. la (author) / Luinge, J.W. (author) / Gibson, A.G. (author)


    Publication date :

    2008


    Size :

    10 Seiten, 11 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 17 Quellen


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Storage medium


    Language :

    English