As I'm sure all builder's have, I wonder (to some degree) about the structural intergrity of the airframe I've chosen to build. Not so much a concern or mistrust, but I think about it. How hard can I safely recover from a dive at max gross? How slow should I fly in rough air? What kind of factor of safety is designed into the plane? Many people building and flying the RW11 have added various beef-ups to the structure to account for a higher gross weight and larger engines. To the best of my knowledge, these were eyeball designs. Which of these changes, if any, were needed or did they provide the strength the builder thought they were?
As a structural engineer, I am probably a little more interested in this aspect of aircraft building than most. As a learning exercise, I've decided to analyze the structure of my plane. I am hoping to tackle the problem in much the same way a professional airframe engineer would. Any experienced professionals in this field should feel free to offer comments - especially if I've taken a wrong turn somewhere.
The following is a list of online resources that I've found with information relating to this particular structural analysis problem. In the following calculations and discussion, I intend to provide links into these sources to make it easier for readers to follow along.
* FAR Part 25 - Federal Aviation Regulations, Part 25, suppart C. The current standards for structural design of aircraft
* CAM 04 - Civil Aeronautics Manual 4, Airplane Airworthiness. An outdated but useful source of information for designing aircraft.
* AC 21-3 - Basic Glider Criteria Handbook. Another outdated, but still very informative, Advisory Circular from the FAA concerning the design of gliders. This document and CAM 04 provide additional insight into airframe structural design.
* Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook - Mechanical properties and engineering guidance for designing wood structures
* Materals Web - A source of mechanical and physical properties for just about any widely available material
* Design of Wood Aircraft Structures - Courtesy of Bill Higdon
As I walk through all the structural analysis of my RW-11, I will post the information in entries under the "Structural Analysis" category.
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