Bird strike virtual testing for preliminary airframe design

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use numerical methods early in the airframe design process and access the structural performance of wing leading edge devices made of different materials and design details, under bird strike events. Design/methodology/approach Explicit finite element analysis was used to numerically model bird strike events. Findings Structural performance charts related to materials and general design details were drawn to explore the design space dictated by the current applicable airworthiness requirements. Practical implications This paper makes use of the current capability in the numerical tools available for structural simulations and exposes the existing limitations in the terms of material modelling, material properties and fracture simulation using continuum damage mechanics. Such results will always be in the need of fine-tuning with experimental testing, yet the tools can shed some light very early in the design process in a relative inexpensive manner, especially for design details down selection like materials to use, structural thicknesses and even design arrangements. Originality/value Bird strike simulations have been successfully used on aircraft design, mainly at the manufactured articles design validation, testing and certification. This paper presents a hypothetical early design case study of leading edge devices for appropriate material and skin thickness down selection.

Design and development of an experimental bench concept for testing of fuselage stiffened panels, using a virtual testing methodology

“…It is of great importance when designing airframes to conduct virtual tests, such as, for example, bird-strike simulations (Perdikoulis et al , 2021; Diamantakos et al , 2017), on selected structural parts to guide future validation and certification of both demonstrator (Ostergaard et al , 2011) and commercial aircraft production. In the case of experimenting on a stiffened shell portion of a fuselage Vankan et al (2017) have built a virtual modelling approach to validate the test bench of a stiffened fuselage side-panel.…”

Bird-strike damage analysis of composite panels with different stiffeners

“…Furthermore, different stiffened panel structures under the bird strike have not been fully considered, which should be 10.1 GPa considered for further applications. Numerical simulation is a typical design tool for optimizing aircraft structures for impacts by foreign objects such as birds (Goraj and Kustron, 2018), and bird strike simulation has been successfully applied to aircraft design for product design verification, testing and certification (Perdikoulis et al, 2021). Therefore, this paper investigated the bird impact damage of stiffened panels with different shapes of stiffeners by numerical methods, and the results obtained can provide guidelines for the design of fuselage skin stiffened panels.…”