ABSTRACT
Composite materials, especially laminated fiberreinforced polymers, are outstandingly suitable for high performance applications such as aircraft components due to their high specific stiffness and strength. There has been a notable change in materials used for structural parts in aircrafts in the past decades and metals have been replaced more and more by composite laminates. In many cases these consist of continuous PAN-based carbon fibers embedded in an epoxy-based matrix since this type of composite material has extraordinary suitable mechanical properties. Composites are now widely used in the aircraft industry in a large variety of primary and secondary structures. It is expected that in future generation aircrafts the entire fuselage and wings will be built in lightweight design. In order to optimize the exploitation of material reserves while maintaining present safety standards industry claims for reliable simulation and certification tools. In the design phase of composite airframe structures it is a key issue to exploit material reserves as far as possible to create lighter and safer aircrafts.
