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Surveillance system airborne composite radome design
Last modified: 2008-05-19
Abstract
A prototype F100 aircraft will be equipped with an experimental ground surveillance radar system based on the use of electronic beam steering, moving target identification (MTI) and synthetic aperture imaging. The Airborne Radome is a structure that serves to enclose a radar antenna and to protect it from its physical environment. There are a wide variety of Radome types, and they can be placed on different parts of the aircraft, making its design different for each case. The antenna of the surveillance radar system is housed in an oblong radome underneath the fuselage, located just forward of the wing. The conception of such a unit is subjected to electrical and structural requirements, because of this, materials used for airborne radomes must have electrical and high mechanical strength properties, but unfortunately, this properties are often mutually exclusive and a compromise solution must be adopted. The scope of this paper is to present a review of a complete radome design, beginning from the electrical design, studying material options, analyzing and determining a wide range of mechanical loads, to finish with structural verifications, as bird impact numerical analysis and mechanical material testing. Also a brief description of the FEM model, strength and failure criteria are developed on this work.
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