Design Optimization of Aircraft Cabin Panels by Additive Manufacturing

Lightweight design is becoming increasingly important in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft. That also includes the components in the cabin. Traditionally, sandwich structures are used in lightweight applications in aircraft cabins due to their high weight-specific properties. However, highly stressed load introduction points are critical and lead to over dimensioning. Especially in highly loaded areas, additive manufacturing offers potential by minimizing interfaces and integrating local reinforcements for load transfer directly into the structure to achieve the best possible material utilization at minimum weight by utilizing design freedom. This contribution shows on the basis of two examples how weight can be reduced by additive manufacturing in the area of highly loaded force introduction points. In the first example, the entire load-bearing structure of an aircraft cabin partition is manufactured in one piece using the DED process. It has been optimized by topology optimization for all applicable load cases. Furthermore, existing restrictions of the DED process are considered. This design can reduce weight by approximately 20 %. In the second example, a solid block insert in a sandwich structure is topology optimized. The positive effect of the design change is experimentally confirmed in a pull-out test compared to a compact specimen of the same weight and a heavier specimen with the same installation space. With the same weight, a 30 % higher pull-out force is achieved. Finally, both examples are compared to each other.