Optimization of honeycomb sandwich floor panels made of polymer-matrix low-combustible composite materials based on high-strength carbon and glass fibers and adhesive binder

The article deals with the task of designing aircraft honeycomb sandwich floor panels considering experimental data on the mechanical properties of new high-strength low-combustible composite materials. The developed experimental and analytical design procedure and optimization algorithm are described. The design task is formulated in terms of nonlinear mathematical programming in which the mass per square meter of the construction is the objective function. The thickness of the base layers, the height of honeycomb core and some other parameters are considered as the design variables. The proposed visual interpretation of the optimal design task allows reducing possible design solutions based on the experimental data to an enumeration of a limited number of design alternates. The article presents a demo task and the results of designing floor panes for an advanced passenger aircraft in the aisle area using a new low-combustible composite material. The floor panel is regarded as a continuous multiply supported plate loaded with distributed load. The proposed grapho-analytical method makes it possible to form the area of rational designs that differ from the optimal one in terms of mass by a specified allowable value. The performed computational and experimental analysis shows that with the use of the new material, a floor panel can be designed with base layers made of carbon or fiberglass and lightweight honeycomb filler with the mass of a square meter from 2,9 to 3,4 kg, which is the state-of-the-art.