Master of Science

thesisCorrosion of aircraft structures is of utmost concern to operators of aging aircraft fleets. Ongoing research abounds in methods to control, prevent, and detect corrosion damage. For corrosion which inevitably manifests on an aircraft surface, however, removal of the corrosion products by mechanical means is a necessary action. This study examines the effects of such corrosion blends on the overall buckling resistance of integrally stiffened upper wing skin panels. Damage parameters considered in this study include center-of-panel blends on the outer skin surface ranging from depths of 0% to 75% of the skin thickness. A relationship was found between the lost load carrying capability of a blended panel and a function of its lost cross-sectional area. It was also found that this relationship can be closely approximated through minor modifications to traditional analytical methods, without the need for more complex numerical methods such as finite element analysis. Although the finite element method is capable of explicitly addressing local surface blends, experimental validation of such results is often expensive, time consuming, and unavailable to the typical structures analyst