Production and mechanical testing of an unmanned helicopter tail cone

One of the important structural parts of helicopters is tail cone which connects the tail rotor to the front structure which includes the main rotor. The tail rotor is an important part of a helicopter and is used to counter the torque effect created by the main rotor. Therefore, the tail cones are subjected to flexural and torsional moments. Because of the long distance between the main rotor and tail rotor, the lightweight materials such as composites are often used for the tail cones. In this study the tail cone is produced using carbon/epoxy face sheets and honeycomb core using a wet hand lay-up technique. The vacuum is applied during the production at elevated temperature. The tail cone is tested under bending and a combined loading including bending and torsion. The test of tail cone is also modeled using the finite element method. The experimental and numerical results are compared. The results are presented and discussed.