Failure Design Investigation of the role of Crack Stopper Strap and Bulk-head in Wide Fuselage Aircraft

The paper describes the static stress & damage tolerance calculations performed on a center body fuselage panel of a medium passenger airplane subjected to pressure loading. Stress calculations of each and every component, if performed manually will become herculean task for the stress engineer. Instead, FEA software can be used to perform these calculations immediately and effectively. For our purpose, we are using the commonly approved ?MSC NASTRAN? as a solver and MSC PATRAN for pre-processing & post-processing. During the analysis, primarily a fuselage panel with a longitudinal two bay crack is modeled and the stress values are obtained. The same model is then analyzed with a tear strap added to it. The residual strength of both of the models is obtained and the damage tolerance capability of the design is studied.