Realisation of Shear Flow at Crucial Spar Splice Joints of Composite Wing in Idealised Wing Test Box

CSIR -National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL) has developed a patented processing technique called “Vacuum Enabled Resin Infusion Technology (VERITy” for the manufacturing of composite wing for its transport aircraft programme. The building block approach was adopted during the design stage of the composite wing to understand the structural response in increasingly complex structural levels. In the subcomponent level, a wing test box was designed, fabricated and was subjected to structural static testing for critical loads of the wing. The wing test box which was idealized into a rectangular box included the most critical joints such as top & bottom skin splice joints and front & rear spar splice joints. The stacking sequence and thickness of laminates used in the respective positions in wing test box replicated the wing structure. The challenge was to maintain the shear flow despite differences in the geometry of wing and test box without compromising on the magnitude of shear force at the critical spar splice joint. This paper discusses the methodology adopted for transforming shear flow from wing structure on to the idealized wing test box.