TABLE OF CONTENTS Environmental requirements actually define the requirements for interfaces between one of the environmental components appropriate to the system and an element of a system. They are, therefore, a special case of interface requirements in that sense. The environmental components are: natural, self-induced, cooperative, non-cooperative, and hostile. We seek to define the environmental stresses that our system and its parts shall experience in each of these categories so that when the system is placed in service it can withstand the combined environmental stresses placed upon it while satisfying its performance requirements.
A naval aircraft's wing must be designed to withstand not only the static stresses experienced in flight due to atmospheric drag in clear air and the effects of gravity on the supported vehicle, but for the dynamic forces experienced in conditions of wind shear, carriage and release of wing stores (including possible pyrotechnic shock during explosive separation of stores), some level of battle damage, possible overloading stresses a pilot may have to apply in tactical maneuvers, and the bone-jarring impact with an aircraft carrier deck arresting and catapult systems. Here we begin to see some of the fundamental differences emerging between military and commercial requirements for aircraft.
We are also vitally interested in not only what all of these environmental stresses are but how these many stresses combine in time to affect the wing structure over its life cycle. Must the wing endure all of these stresses simultaneously throughout its life or are some of the stresses applied...
