Free Vibration Analysis of Anisotropic Composite Materials of a Fixed-Wing

Abstract

Nowadays, the availability of composite materials and their acceptable manufacturing cost, in addition to their high strength-to-weight ratio, has shifted the use of the materials from metal alloys to composite materials in the aircraft industry. In this paper, a comprehensive analysis of wing natural frequencies and deflection with regard to three different composite materials - carbon fiber, glass fiber, and Kevlar fiber - was conducted, and the results were compared with conventional metal alloys aluminum2024 and 7075-T6, while taking into account the anisotropic behavior of the composite materials. The results indicate that the metal alloys aluminum 2024 and 7075-T6 have the best properties, and consists of the most suitable materials for aircraft wings compared with other composite materials. In addition, the deflection of the wing using AL2024 was about 0.549 unit length and for 7075-T6 was about 0.547 unit length, which was almost less than half of the deflections of other proposed composite materials which are 1.252, 1.389, 1.293 unit length for glass fiber, Kevlar fiber and carbon fiber, respectively.