Main connector for an airfoil or wing
AssigneeMesserschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm GmbH
InventorsMax Eiselbrecher, Rolf Guenther, Helmut Jakob
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An airfoil or wing is connected to the body of an aircraft or spacecraft through a main connector comprising metal and nonmetal components. Tension load take-up loops and a pressure load take-up core are arranged or held in a metal grommet which in turn is centered relative to and integrated with a main connector bushing. Thus, the tension loads are solely introduced into the wing structure through the tension loops and pressure loads are taken up solely by the pressure core, whereby the advantages of fiber compound materials are optimally utilized.
Claims8
A wing structure having a free end forming a wing tip and a connector end adapted to be connected to a craft, said wing structure further including a leading edge and a trailing edge, comprising a plurality of laminated layers (14) and connector means (16) secured to said connector end of said wing structure, said connector means comprising a connector bore (16c) with a central axis (16b) and metal grommet means (15) centered relative to said central axis (16b), said metal grommet means (15) comprising a plurality of bearing recesses (17) arranged in radial succession at radii which increase from said central axis (16b) away from said wing tip, said wing structure further comprising tension loop means (18) each having two loop legs (18") and a bight (18') connecting the respective two loop legs, each loop bight being held in one of said bearing recesses (17) of the metal grommet means (15), said loop legs (18") being spread out substantially between said leading edge and said trailing edge of said wing structure, said spread out loop legs being embedded in said laminated layers (14) whereby said loop legs (18") are operatively connected to said wing structure for introducing substantially tension loads only into said wing structure, said metal grommet means further comprising a concavity (19) opening toward said wing tip, and pressure body means (20) operatively held at one end (20') thereof in said concavity (19) of said metal grommet means (15) and operatively connected to said wing structure between said loop legs (18) for introducing substantially pressure loads only into said wing structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.