Page 12 - Aircraft Stuctures for Engineering Student

Preface to Second Edition

The publication of a second edition has given me the opportunity to examine the
contents of the book in detail and determine which parts required alteration and
modernization. Aircraft structures, particularly in the field of materials, is a rapidly
changing subject and, while the fundamentals of analysis remain essentially the
same, clearly an attempt must be made to keep abreast of modern developments.
At the same time I have examined the presentation making changes where I felt it
necessary and including additional material which I believe will be useful for students
of the subject.
The first five chapters remain essentially the same as in the first edition except for
some minor changes in presentation.
In Chapter 6, Section 6.12 has been rewritten and extended to include flexural-
torsional buckling of thin-walled columns; Section 6.13 has also been rewritten to
present the theory of tension field beams in a more logical form.
The discussion of composite materials in Chapter 7 has been extended in the light of
modern developments and the sections concerned with the function and fabrication of
structural components now include illustrations of actual aircraft structures of differ-
ent types. The topic of structural idealization has been removed to Chapter 8.
Chapter 8 has been retitled and the theory presented in a different manner. Matrix
notation is used in the derivation of the expression for direct stress due to unsymme-
trical bending and the ‘bar’ notation discarded. The theory of the torsion of closed
sections has been extended to include a discussion of the mechanics of warping,
and the theory for the secondary warping of open sections amended. Also included
is the analysis of combined open and closed sections. Structural idealization has
been removed from Chapter 7 and is introduced here so that the effects of structural
idealization on the analysis follow on logically. An alternative method for the calcu-
lation of shear flow distributions is presented.
Chapter 9 has been retitled and extended to the analysis of actual structural com-
ponents such as tapered spars and beams, fuselages and multicell wing sections. The
method of successive approximations is included for the analysis of many celled wings
and the effects of cut-outs in wings and fuselages are considered. In addition the cal-
culation of loads on and the analysis of fuselage frames and wing ribs is presented. In
addition to the analysis of structural components composite materials are considered
with the determination of the elastic constants for a composite together with their use
in the fabrication of plates.