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The skin of the wing is not shown. In modern aircraft most of the parts are fabricated of laminated composite materials. During flight the wing carries the weight of the aircraft and therefore bends upward like a cantilevered beam the root of which is at the fuselage. The upper surface of the wing and its attached stringers are therefore in compression in the spanwise direction. Because of this spanwise compression the curved, longitudinally stiffened wing panels can buckle locally (between ribs and stringers) and “generally” (between ribs with stringers participating in the general buckling modal displacement). Lighter viable designs are possible if, in the design process, the skin is allowed to buckle during especially stressful maneuvers, such as happens in the case of the glider shown on the home page of this website. The development of computer programs for buckling and post-buckling of axially compressed composite stiffened panels was largely motivated by these buckling and post-buckling phenomena.
FROM:
Anonymous, “A brief history of aircraft structures” Composite Materials, History, Novel Materials/Tailored Structures, August 19 2012
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