As we all know, the application of carbon fiber composite materials in commercial aircraft has undergone a transformation from secondary structural parts to primary structural parts. In some advanced foreign commercial aircraft (such as Boeing 787, Airbus A350, etc.), the use of carbon fiber composite materials CFRP has reached or even exceeded 50%.
In fact, the reason why foreign countries develop carbon fiber composite structural parts for commercial aircraft is partly due to a NASA-ACEE (Aircraft Energy Efficiency) research program initiated by the NASA Research Center of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which aims to reduce aircraft fuel consumption.
Carbon fiber reinforced resin composites (hereinafter referred to as CFRP) have a series of excellent properties such as high strength, high modulus, high fatigue strength, and low specific gravity. CFRP was originally used in sports equipment, and in recent years has expanded to include energy fields such as pressure vessels and wind turbines, as well as transportation fields such as automobiles . The first use of composite materials on a civil aircraft was the front flap of the Boeing 707 (boron fiber/epoxy resin, first flight in 1970), followed by the use of three carbon fiber composite materials (T300/2544, T300/5209, AS/3501) on the spoiler of the Boeing 737 in 1973 .
The reason why CFRP was subsequently used in primary structural components of commercial aircraft was because of the Advanced Composite Structure Program (1977-1985), a project of NASA-ACEE (Aircraft Energy Efficiency) initiated by NASA's Langley Research Center in 1975 to reduce aircraft fuel consumption. The project used CFRP to reduce the weight of the aircraft by 25%, resulting in a 10-15% reduction in fuel consumption .
