122. Reinforced Plastics in Aircraft Construction

Paper

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed great advances in the application and usage of fibrous glass reinforced plastics in the aeronautic, automotive, and marine industries. Much can be said about the recent developments of low-cost fabrication techniques in reinforced plastics in the latter two fields, however, that is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, it shall be the purpose of this work to enumerate the basic advantage of reinforced plastics and their application to aircraft and guided missile construction. In doing so, several specific examples of end products will be mentioned along with certain distinct drawbacks. Finally, two specific structural configurations will be analyzed in detail.
The general subject of reinforced plastics covers a host of combinations of reinforcing materials such as glass fibers, cotton duck, paper, asbestos fibers, etc., and thermosetting resins to produce a structural material. The principal combination employed in aircraft and guided missile construction in this country consists of polyester resin types reinforced with glass fiber to form unidirectional, fabric, and mat type laminates conforming to specification MIL-P-8013. In general, most of this paper is concerned with this specific type of reinforced plastic.