Composites sandwich structures certification: A case study

The motivation of this work is to show a case study represented by a test article in tapered sandwich structure with a mid-ramp region in order to reduce certification cost of the full-scale structure. Also, this work provides a compelling case for the standardization of Load Enhancement Factor for certification purposes. Therefore, the development of this work is based on the definition of the test article with a manufacturing defect and impact damage, for compliance static and damage tolerance requirements with damage no-growth approach. The results obtained showed a good strategy to reduce risk and cost of the certification development.