Structural bionic design for aircraft cover plate based on leaf vein branched structure

Light-weight is a crucial requirement for structural design of thin walled parts. In the case of original aircraft cover plate, the leaf vein distribution principle of a giant waterlily was analyzed and applied to structural bionic design for original structure. Using ANSYS APDL as a finite element analysis tool, the parametric model of bionic structure was obtained and the best structural parameter of ribs in the bionic structure was presented through optimization. The finite element analysis (FEA) results indicate that, compared with original structure, the optimized bionic structure has less weight, higher efficiency of specific strength, better static mechanical performances.