The Optimization Process of Aircraft Side Panel’s Weight Reduction Based on Orthogonal Experiment

Reducing aircraft weight for engineering and manufacturing processes is very important but challenging. To solve this problem, a weight-reduction optimization design method for aircraft side panels based on orthogonal experiments and finite-element analysis was proposed for the first time in this paper. The design factors of the aircraft side panels and the layout of composite materials were comprehensively considered in an orthogonal design experiment and optimized using the finite-element analysis software ABAQUS. The side panels were locally strengthened to reduce the thickness of the honeycomb core in the composite material to meet the strength requirements, thereby reducing the weight of the side panels. The final experimental scheme was 245.7 g (11.4%) lighter than the original scheme, showing that the proposed method can efficiently and rapidly achieve significant weight reduction of aircraft side panels.