Abstract

A substantial contribution to reduce the aerodynamic drag and consequent CO₂ and NO_x emissions is to integrate communication antennas in the aircraft structure. This paper presents a GLARE fuselage panel design for an integrated VHF slot antenna and discusses the results of a mechanical experimental campaign on a structural element level, in quasi-static tensile conditions. The tested specimens showed small variability in terms of stiffness and strength (typical for GLARE), little dependence on the ambient conditions, damage presence, and layup configurations and good agreement with early numerical simulations. In addition, stiffness and strength predictions, based on empirically found design values seem to correlate well with the found test values