SDM Lecture: Certifying Innovative Composite Applications 8 January 2020 1800 - 1900

This lecture summarizes existing practices for composite aircraft certification, with an emphasis on structural aspects, and discusses the limitations and lessons learned from today’s “traditional” composite structures. It describes procedures that can be used to certify advanced materials and processes which may have increased levels of variability, unfamiliar structural performance, nonclassical (e.g., nonlocal) behavior, and randomized properties. Provided such complexity can be reliably controlled by maintaining repeatable materials and processes in fabricating and assembling parts, both design and production certification can be achieved. The related technological advances from real applications that meet safety, form, fit and functional requirements, while achieving product value, will yield the practical experience, knowledge, and capable workforce necessary for future improvements.