Analysis of Bird Impact on a Composite Tailplane Leading Edge

One of the main structural requirements of a leading edge of a tailplane is to ensure that any significant damage caused by foreign object (i.e. birdstrike, etc...) would still allow the aircraft to land safely. In particular, leading edge must be certified for a proven level of bird impact resistan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied composite materials 2008-11, Vol.15 (4-6), p.241-257
Main Authors: Guida, M., Marulo, F., Meo, M., Riccio, M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging aircraft
Aircraft
Aircraft components
Bird impact
Characterization and Evaluation of Materials
Chemistry and Materials Science
Classical Mechanics
Computer simulation
Design
Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering
Leading edges
Materials Science
Mathematical models
Polymer Sciences
Studies
Tailplanes
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Summary:One of the main structural requirements of a leading edge of a tailplane is to ensure that any significant damage caused by foreign object (i.e. birdstrike, etc...) would still allow the aircraft to land safely. In particular, leading edge must be certified for a proven level of bird impact resistance. Since the experimental tests are expensive and difficult to perform, numerical simulations can provide significant help in designing high-efficiency bird-proof structures. The aim of this research paper was to evaluate two different leading edge designs by reducing the testing costs by employing state-of-the-art numerical simulations. The material considered was a sandwich structure made up of aluminium skins and flexcore as core. Before each test was carried out, pre-test numerical analyses of birdstrike were performed adopting a lagrangian approach on a tailplane leading edge of a large scale aircraft using the MSC/Dytran solver code. The numerical and experimental correlation have shown good results both in terms of global behaviour of the test article and local evolution of some measurable parameters confirming the validity of the approach and possible guidelines for structural design including the bird impact requirements.
ISSN:0929-189X
1573-4897
DOI:10.1007/s10443-008-9070-6