The structural problems of metal aircraft design largely centre round the difficulty of making efficient compression members. This difficulty is accentuated when loads are small in relation to the size of the structure. For example, the diameter of an aeroplane fuselage cannot usually be less than the height of a man, which results in such small forces at the surface of the shell that the lightest practicable beam is quite disproportionate to its strength.

As a measure of load in relation to size, it is convenient to use a quantity that we suggest may be called the “ structure loading.” This quantity, due to H. Wagner (8), is simply the square root of the applied load divided by a characteristic dimension (such as the length) of the member.

Laminated materials incorporating plastics seem to be especially well suited lor highly stressed aircraft components, by reason of their good strength properties. Paper, fabric and wood veneers treated with plastics on a phenolic basis were tested with regard to their strength, especially in bending, shear, absorbed energy in impact bending, notching strength and in their resistance against moisture. Further, the behaviour of compressed plastics was studied at different temperatures under static and dynamic loads. A part of the research was extended to pure phenol resin and to thermoplastics based on methacrylate and polyvinylchloride. The bonding properties of laminated compressed plastics were established. Concluding, some experiments relating to the practical manufacture of aeroplane components are communicated.

A method has been developed for making photoelastic analyses of threedimensional stress systems by utilising the polarisation phenomena associated with the scattering of light. By this method, the maximum shear and the directions of the three principal stresses at any point within a model can be determined, and the two principal stresses at a free-bounding surface can be separately evaluated. Polarised light is projected into the model through a slit so that it illuminates a plane section. The light is continuously analysed along its path by scattering and the state of stress in the illuminated section is obtained. By means of a series of such sections, the entire stress field may be explored. The method was used to analyse the stress system of a simple beam in bending. The results were found to be in good agreement with those expected from elementary theory.