Auxiliary fuel tank systems for civil aircraft are typically employed in extended-range aircraft. As a critical structure for fuel storage, the structural safety of auxiliary fuel tanks directly impacts aircraft safety. Such tanks are generally constructed from honeycomb sandwich composite panels. Owing to their outstanding advantages, including high specific strength, light weight, and corrosion resistance, honeycomb sandwich composite panels have become the material of choice for civil aircraft fuel tanks. However, to meet the safety requirements for ventilation and leakage drainage in the sandwich structure of fuel tanks, dedicated flow channels must be created by slotting inside the honeycomb composite panels to ensure timely discharge of fuel vapor and accumulated fluid from the tank sandwich.
Conventional flow channels are symmetrically arranged on the end faces of the honeycomb core, making it difficult for ventilation airflow to penetrate the center of honeycomb cells. This results in ventilation and drainage blind spots within the cells, which tend to cause accumulation of fuel vapor and residual fluid over prolonged service. Consequently, the aging of the core layer is accelerated, compromising the structural integrity of the composite panel and the service life of the fuel tank.
This paper proposes an asymmetric ventilation flow channel design. By optimizing the slotting position, size, and distribution pattern of the flow channels, the limitations of the traditional symmetric layout are overcome. To accurately investigate the effect of this design on the internal ventilation performance of honeycomb composite panels, a three-dimensional flow field model of the honeycomb sandwich composite panel is established using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The ventilation airflow distribution, velocity, and flow rate characteristics under different flow channel designs are simulated and compared with those of the conventional symmetric flow channel design.
The results demonstrate that the asymmetric ventilation flow channel design improves the ventilation uniformity inside the honeycomb cells and completely eliminates the ventilation and drainage blind spots at the cell center inherent in the traditional design. Meanwhile, the design significantly enhances the ventilation gas velocity and flow rate at the center of honeycomb cells, accelerating the discharge of fuel vapor and drainage of accumulated fluid. The overall ventilation efficiency is considerably higher than that of the traditional symmetric design. This study provides a theoretical basis and technical support for the safety design of honeycomb composite panels used in auxiliary fuel tanks of civil aircraft.