FREE VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE AIRCRAFT WING WITH CIRCULAR CUTOUT USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

In the present study, the effect of circular cutout in the skin of composite aircraft wing on the natural frequencies was studied by finite element method using ANSYS software version 11. The case which was studied is the presence of circular cutout in the skin of the wing through its thickness. The parameters which were studied are the cutout ratio, the location of cutout along the wing span, the location of the cutout along the wing width and the number of the damaged panels. The results showed that the presence of cutout caused a small decreasing in the natural frequencies. The increasing in the cutout ratio and the number of damaged panels caused a small decrease in the natural frequencies. The variation in the location of the cutout along the wing span and the wing width caused very small effect on the natural frequencies.