Patent ID: 8376275

Claim:
An aircraft, comprising: a fuselage having a fuselage frame; a floor including floor beams within the fuselage and longitudinal beams extending transverse to the floor beams; and, an energy absorbing structure between the floor and the fuselage for absorbing energy in the event the fuselage is impacted, the energy absorbing structure including a plurality of energy absorbing stanchions extending between the floor beams and the fuselage, each of said energy absorbing stanchions having a first end attached to both a floor beam and a longitudinal beam, and a second end attached to the fuselage frame, and having a cross-section comprising a first pair of spaced apart flanges, each of the flanges having a taper narrowing substantially continuously from the first end to the second end of the stanchion, and having a compressive strength that progressively decreases along substantially an entire length of the stanchion between the floor beam and the fuselage frame, the stanchions being axially oriented at differing angles relative to the longitudinal axes of the floor beams.