This study addresses the crucial role of post-buckling behavior analysis in the structural design of composite aeronautical structures. Traditional engineering practices tend to result in oversized composite components, increasing structural weight. EASA AMC 20-29’s Building Block Approach suggests phased testing, but its time and cost challenges necessitate a shift to high-fidelity post-buckling analyses, exemplified by MSC NASTRAN SOL 400. This approach, showcased in the analysis of the Next Generation Civil Tilt Rotor Technology Demonstrator’s wing (NGTCTR-TD), effectively de-risks static tests, contributing to a more efficient certification process. The study demonstrates how advanced simulations provide detailed insights into local buckling phenomena, allowing precise stress distribution analysis. These analyses eliminate the risk of structural failure, paving the way for safer, more efficient, and cost-effective airframe structures. Future developments aim to validate numerical analyses with experimental data, further emphasizing the reliability and benefits of high-fidelity simulations.

This paper presents the optimization-oriented structural design of aircraft empennages developed within the HERFUSE project, funded by the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking. The study focuses on the horizontal and vertical tailplane of a hybrid-electric regional aircraft, considering the structural challenges introduced by distributed propulsion and novel integration requirements. The distributed propulsion layout influences the tail load envelope through powered-on maneuver/gust and asymmetric-thrust conditions, which contribute to the laminate redistribution in regions subjected to high bending–torsional demand. Starting from a conceptual structural configuration, the empennage is refined through a multi-objective optimization process. The structure is discretized into multiple regions, each characterized by independent laminate definitions selected from a predefined set of stacking sequences. The optimization aims to minimize the overall structural mass while ensuring adequate structural integrity under the project complete set of load cases. Structural performance is evaluated using a failure criterion suitable for composite materials, allowing the identification of critical regions and the redistribution of material accordingly. The results highlight the effectiveness of the adopted optimization strategy in improving structural efficiency, providing a refined configuration with a final mass of 433 kg, corresponding to an approximately 27.23% reduction with respect to the reference configuration coming from project specifications, while maintaining controlled failure index levels. The proposed approach demonstrates its suitability for supporting early-stage design decisions in next-generation hybrid-electric aircraft.

This work presents the numerical assessment of a civil aircraft horizontal tailplane (HTP) using a fully parametric structural model developed through the Ansys Parametric Design Language (APDL). The objective is to evaluate the structural integrity, efficiency, and dynamic behavior of the HTP under realistic operational conditions within the HERFUSE Clean Aviation framework. The study includes linear static analyses for load distribution and critical stress regions, modal analysis for dynamic response characterization, and linear buckling analyses to determine stability assessment. Safety margins are computed for representative load cases across spars, skins, and ribs. The workflow will be integrated and connected to Multidisciplinary Optimization (MDO) loops for higher-level design trade-offs.

This paper presents a parametric finite element procedure developed in ANSYS APDL to support the early structural design of a civil aircraft horizontal tailplane (HTP). The automated workflow generates geometry, mesh, material definition, load application, and structural analyses through a fully parametric script, enabling rapid and repeatable design iterations. Key geometric and structural parameters can be easily adjusted to evaluate alternative configurations. Developed within the HERFUSE project under the Clean Aviation program, this method provides early metrics such as stress, displacement, and mass. Its modular structure also allows adaptation to other aircraft components and integration into multidisciplinary design and optimization frameworks.