Aircraft Door Design

I am not expert or related to aircrafts. Thus, can give no design references

But, I would suggest you to see the Series from National Geographics on "Air Crash Investigations", many of them are on door designs

All the best

Tip:- Don't copy the DC10 design. As per previous reply... see "Air Crash Investigations".. :)

Remember the patent only lasts 17 years. Most aircraft accessory doors are derived from designs much older than that. Cabin doors are a little more complicated, but the doors covering unpressurized ground access points tend to be a panel with a piano hinge and a latch - frequently a Dzus or other quarter-turn fastener.

Landing gear doors are frequently attached directly to the gear itself, thus eliminating additional mechanisms of any type.

I do this kind of work on a daily basis but I regret I cannot publish any of our designs. They are company/customer proprietary.

The designs we've done have been as simple as pulling/pushing a flat sheet of reinforced honeycomb back and forth to a complex curved spring loaded hurricane type shutter. They all involve DC drive motors, drive shafts, angle and "T" gear boxes, and oftentimes chains and gears. Most of this stuff is off the shelf from McMaster-Carr. The rest of the parts are fabricated in-house.

Sorry I can't be more specific and I'm well aware that there is very little to reference on the net. Fortunately, my company has a wealth of talented designers and mechanics to flesh out the designs. We also rely a lot on FAA DER's to support us when there is more design/documentation work than bodies to accomplish it.

Good luck,

Hooker

Sounds similar to our approches - especially the McMaster-Carr parts. We're relying on basic mechanical design know-how and lots of interface with our customer. We get the job done, but I can't help thinking that there are long proven designs with lots of flight hours.

What is the name of your firm, if you can say?

I'll check out FAA data, also suggested by another poster.

That's Experimental Aviation Association, EAA, not Federal Aviation Administration' FAA.

Although, there may also be some info on the FAA or even NASA sites as well.

I work for Dynamic Aviation, based out of Bridgewater, VA.

The trouble with these door designs, at least in our case, is that each mission is somewhat unique. We often reuse designs but each has to be tweaked to fit the particular equipment our customers want to fly, and the equipment is ever changing.

We are finally standardizing on other things though; hardpoints, external (protective) pods, holes in the skin with supporting structure, etc.

Virtually everything we do has to go through an FAA DER (Design Engineering Rep) for analysis and approval, so we often hire them to consult and/or design on the projects. We are looking for our own structures DER, though. These guys aren't cheap to contract or to coordinate with on their busy schedules.

Hooker

Since you're subsonic and non-pressurized, maybe look around the EAA site for ideas or links.

Have you ever refer to the auto door design on the deluxe bus?

Some of them are also wonderful design.

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hi, My name is Harish.I m doing HND aircraft engineering..I m finding new design of aircraft door.can u send me different design of door ....I will be very thankful u.......