The Structures Panel was constituted by the AR&DB in 1971. The panel has been one of the fore runners working towards the overall goals of AR&DB. It has made pioneering efforts in sponsored research and has been responsible for developing R&D culture, which was at infancy in 1960's academic institutions and research laboratories.

In the field of aircraft structures the main thrust in the R&D effort during the past three decades has been on the development of understanding of static and dynamic behavior, in the development of software packages and development and application of testing techniques. An important part of this effort has been oriented towards application to composite structures, a significant development of which has been a state of art computer controlled autoclave facility developed at NAL. Another major area of R&D effort has been fatigue and fracture mechanics of metallic structures, which has finally resulted in the development of full-scale fatigue test facility at NAL for fighter aircraft. Besides this, the other fields, which had received attention, are non-destructive testing, vibrations, stress analysis, aero elasticity, computer aided design, experimental stress analysis, finite element method etc.