In this work, the mechanical and failure behavior of injection molded aviation standard optical grade polycarbonate (PC) was investigated through uniaxial tensile testing. The effect of different injection molding process parameters including injection velocity, packing pressure, cooling time, mold temperature, and melt temperature were determined to observe their effect on yield and postyield behavior of PC. Out of these examined parameters, the mold and melt temperature show significant effect on mechanical behavior of studied polymer. The yield and flow stresses in polymer increase with the increase in mold and melt temperature during injection molding. However, other process parameters i.e., packing pressure, injection velocity, and cooling time showed little effect on mechanical performance of the polymer. The molded specimens were annealed at different temperatures and residence time to evaluate its effect on mechanical behavior and fracture morphology. The yield stress increases gradually with the increase in annealing temperature and time. The annealing treatment also changed the failure mode of PC specimens from ductile to brittle. In addition to process parameters, the effect of increased loading rate was also undertaken which shows substantial effect on mechanical and failure behavior of PC.

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Bird impact poses serious threats to military and civilian aircrafts as they lead to fatal structural damage to critical aircraft components. The exposed aircraft components such as windshields, radomes, leading edges, engine structure, and blades are vulnerable to bird strikes. Windshield is the frontal part of cockpit and more susceptible to bird impact. In the present study, finite element (FE) simulations were performed to assess the dynamic response of windshield against high velocity bird impact. Numerical simulations were performed by developing nonlinear FE model in commercially available explicit FE solver AUTODYN. An elastic-plastic material model coupled with maximum principal strain failure criterion was implemented to model the impact response of windshield. Numerical model was validated with published experimental results and further employed to investigate the influence of various parameters on dynamic behavior of windshield. The parameters include the mass, shape, and velocity of bird, angle of impact, and impact location. On the basis of numerical results, the critical bird velocity and failure locations on windshield were also determined. The results show that these parameters have strong influence on impact response of windshield, and bird velocity and impact angle were amongst the most critical factors to be considered in windshield design.

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