The expansion and competitive position of general aviation in the field of transportation depends upon improving the safety and utility of light aircraft while, simultaneously, reducing the cost. Toward this end, the Mission Analysis Division of NASA is investigating various areas associated with the design of light aircraft and has sponsored this study on structural materials and concepts. The primary objectives of this two-phase, accomplished by San Diego Aircraft Engineering, Inc., was (1) to make a comparative evaluation of a wide variety of materials and structural concepts, presently and potentially available for application to light aircraft, by investigating the affect of design, manufacturing, operational, and material requirements on the cost of this class of aircraft (2) to apply the more promising materials and structural concepts to the conceptual design of light aircraft (3) to identify key problem areas where additional research may increase the potential of promising materials or concepts. A secondary objective was to prepare this report summarizing the results of the comparative evaluation and showing how these results may be applied to the structural design studies of light aircraft. This report is a sequel to the Final and Summary Reports which were prepared at the conclusion of the study. Initially this report describes several pertinent cost considerations representative of this class of aircraft to establish a cost base for the study. The following section tabulates the properties of a variety of metallic and non-metallic materials that are promising candidates for application to future aircraft designs. And, the remaining sections, discuss in more detail the evaluation of these materials, their areas of application, fatigue considerations and fastening techniques.
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