International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113

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International Journal of Impact Engineering

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Review

Certification by birdstrike analysis on C27J fullscale ribless composite leading edge

M. Guida a, *, F. Marulo a, M. Meo b, S. Russo c
a
Dep. of Aerospace Engineering, University of Naples “Federico II”, 80125 Naples, Italy
b
Material Research Centre, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath, UK
c
Alenia Aeronautica, viale dell’Aeronautica, Pomigliano d’Arco, Naples, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The objective of this paper was to design, manufacture and test a composite leading edge, without ribs,
Received 18 November 2011 able to satisfy birdstrike requirements specified by certification authorities.
Received in revised form The leading edge configuration was validated through an extensive campaign of experimental tests
6 July 2012
performed firstly on small sample to determine the mechanical properties [1], then through the analysis
Accepted 7 October 2012
Available online 2 November 2012
and testing of a small representative structures of the wing leading edge [2,3]. The explicit finite element
software MSC.DytranÒ [4] was chosen for the numerical investigation and a validated simulation
methodology was developed to predict the birdstrike scenario.
Keywords:
Birdstrike
The evaluation of numerous birdstrike scenarios allowed an improved design efficiency and safety and
High-speed impact led to a significant reduction of certification costs. The most important achievement was a ribless wing
Ribless leading edge leading edge made of FML, aluminium and honeycomb able to satisfy the birdstrike resistance test
Composite material specified by the Federal Aviation Regulation [5]. This configuration allowed a considerable reduction in
Certification requirements weight and manufacturing costs.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Aircraft leading edges must be certified for a proven level of bird
impact resistance. In particular, the main structural requirement is
to protect the torsion box and control devices from any significant
damage caused by birdstrike in order to allow the aircraft to land
safely.
Birdstrikes have been an issue since the earliest days of manned
flight. The first recorded human fatality resulting from a birdstrike
occurred in 1912. Cal Rodgers, the first man to fly across the United
States, crashed into the ocean after a gull became jammed in his
aircraft’s flight controls [7]. Since then, birdstrikes have become an
increasingly serious problem in both civil and military aviation,
with many thousands of strikes occurring every year. Birdstrike is
a potentially serious and damaging event that must be accounted
for in the design of flight critical aircraft components.
Traditionally, aircraft structures have been designed against
birdstrikes using empirical formulae [8], then with the advent of
new and more reliable simulation tools experimental tests were
only carried out for birdstrike certification (for example
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: michele.guida@unina.it (M. Guida).
certification of the Boeing 787 [11]) only on structure designed and
analysed with Finite element analysis.
To predict structural response under impact different approaches
can be used: Lagrangian Finite element and Smooth Particle
Hydrodynamics (SPH), Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) and
Eulerian approach. Birnbaum et al., [12], analysed impact of
a projectile on a concrete target using the three above specified
approaches. The Lagrange (projectile)-SPH (concrete) combination
produced the best results, for the visualization of the impact. The
three methods provided an adequate prediction of the deceleration
of the projectile when compared to test results, however the average
peak deceleration of the projectile was under-predicted by 20e30%.
The Lagrangian SPH approach was employed for modelling the
bird impacting on the aircraft wing leading edge structures in [9]
and [10] with good accuracy.
In the Lagrangian formulation, the nodes of the mesh are
associated to particles in the material under examination; there-
fore, each node of the mesh follows an individual particle in
motion. Another advantage of the Lagrangian method is the ability
to easily track history dependant materials. However, a Lagrangian
description of this problem may result in loss of bird mass due to
the fluid behaviour of the bird, which causes large distortions in the
bird. The severe mesh distortion causes the time step to decrease to
an unacceptably low value for the calculations to continue.

0734-743X/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2012.10.002
106 M. Guida et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113
Furthermore these excessive distortions produce also a negative
elemental volume. Many researchers focused their attention to
address these problems, McCarthy [9,10], Airoldi and Cacchione
[23] have developed a numerical procedure to solve the problem
related to the large deformations and to define the localized failure
during a bird impact.
To calculate the structural deformation and failure of aircraft
structure under birdstrike loading requires that the numerical tools
employed are capable of handling the following areas efficiently
and accurately: actual pressure levels and distribution against the
target aircraft structure, resulting from a bird impact; maximum
and average force levels; duration of a birdstrike; handle large
element distortion, reliable material model to capture actual
material flow and failure behaviour; strain rate effects, and struc-
tural fasteners should be modelled since failure may start at hole
locations therefore non-linear tensile and shear forcee
displacement characteristics and failure of individual fasteners
should be included. Finally developing an accurate equation of state
for the fluid model is a key step in fluidestructure interaction study.
It will affect the kinematics of the bird and as a result influence the
loads applied to the structure by the fluids.
Given the complexity and the large number of variables
involved in a bird-strike phenomenon, replacing experimental test
with numerical tools is not yet achievable. On the other hand,
structural tests are expensive (a single-shot test can cost several
thousand of euros) and usually provide only limited amount of
information about the structural response to a birdstrike whereas
advanced numerical analysis methods offer the possibility of better
understanding of structural impact resistance and new designs and
materials can be studied. These will definitively lead to the reduc-
tion of experimental tests needed for certification.
As specified in FAR 25.631, birdstrike testing can be replaced
with appropriate numerical analysis as long as the results have
been validated against representative aircraft structure. Due to
substantial advances made in modelling dynamic behaviour of
materials during an impact and their structural characteristics in
absorbing the impact energy combined with the general advances
and improvements in the performance of explicit finite element
methods, aircraft manufacturers (Alenia) are more and more using
numerical analysis methods to design and analyse structures under
bird-strike loading. The benefits include possibility to analyse
different design concepts, new materials and various impact
scenarios. Potential risks are agreed with airworthiness authorities
and a joint effort can be made in order to reduce significantly the
risks associated with birdstrikes.
This work is the result of a collaborative project between
universities and an industrial partner. The aim of this project was
to design and analyse with the help of finite element analysis
coupled to experimental tests, an aircraft wing leading edge
structure with innovative materials, by satisfying minimum
weight, testing costs and maximum performance requirements.
This study was driven by the industrial demand to improve the
design rules and numerical techniques necessary for the virtual
evaluation of the structural response of aircraft structures. This
study was focused on a reducing the weight of an aluminium
leading edge of Lockheed Martin C27J aircraft that was subjected
to birdstrike with a velocity of 250 kts with the aim to satisfy
airworthiness requirements specified under FAR section 25.631
Birdstrike Damage [5].
An additional aim of this work was to prove that these
methods can be extended to analyse other structural and non
structural aeronautical components such as wings trailing edge
flaps, front fuselage, engine intake, landing gear bay doors and
the vertical and horizontal tailplane structures for future aircraft
projects.
2. Experimental
The focus of this article was to identify a novel material and
design configuration of the leading edge for a C27J aircraft fin that
was able to reduce the weight of a traditional metallic configuration
and satisfy the birdstrike certification requirement.
The birdstrike tests were carried out by adopting a procedure
able to comply with certification requirements. The facility used to
generate bird-strike was an air pressure gun apparatus, which is
illustrated in Fig. 1, and tests were carried out according to the
technical test method reported in Ref. [14]. The air pressure gun
consists of a pressure tank with a barrel 39 ft (12 m) and an
allowable working pressure of 250 psi (1725 MPa); a release
mechanism, comprised of a firing solenoid, diaphragm, and
a cutter. Upon initiation of the firing sequence, the release mech-
anism allows the compressed gas stored in the pressure tank to
flow rapidly into the gun barrel and propel the projectile, and
a launch tube, that is a smooth bore tube that guides the packaged
bird during its acceleration by the expanding air from the pressure
tank. The bore and length of the barrel is chosen both to accom-
modate the largest of the projectiles to be used and for the overall
performance requirements of the gun.
The initial thickness of the C27J tailcone leading edge was
0.8 mm made of aluminium alloys and the total weight was 12.1 kg.
However, with impacted 130 kts with an 8 lb bird as suggested by
the European [5], and American regulations [6], the tests showed
significant object penetration. Then to satisfy the airworthiness
requirements, the thickness of the aluminium alloy leading edge
was increased to 3.2 mm with a total skin weight of 36.8 kg. This
resulted in a weight increase of 305%.
Then a new composite configuration was sought to reduce
weight and possibly minimise manufacturing costs. The test article
analysed was a full-scale leading edge of C27J with a length of
2970 mm, with a cord that varies between 350 mm and 750 mm
and assembled on the tailcone with a length 5150 mm, Fig. 2. The
full-scale was assembling onto a fixture to simulate the real aircraft
tailcone, and achieving the exact boundary conditions as experi-
enced on the real aircraft.
The position of the leading edge on the fin is shown in Fig. 3. The
sweepback angle of 63
is considered a favourable due to reduction
of maximum load during the strike since the impactor tends to slide
on the leading edge.
The velocity of the projectile was measured by two photocells
mounted between the muzzle and the separator. The data were
acquired with a sampling frequency of 100 kHz, this system was
linked to the load cells and attached to the loading frame and to
other sensors (accelerometers, strain gauges) located around test
article. Unfiltered data were acquired however when correlating
experimental and numerical results a CFC180 [24] filtered was
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the baretensile impact apparatus.
 M. Guida et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113
Fig. 2. Steel fixture.
used. Preliminary validation of the birdstrike certification meth-
odology was achieved through a series of tests and simulations on
a simplified leading edge bay, developed and manufactured
specially for this purpose [2], and [3]. Thickness for the skins, layup
and type of mechanical fasteners and the fittings installation type
were obtained by performing five tests with different composite
layup with a bird with a nominal weight of 8 lb. Based on test
results been obtained on a small scale, the same modelling tech-
nique, material models etc. were transferred to study a full-scale
leading edge to be employed on a tailplane. The constraints used
were typical of a connection of a leading edge to the spar, the
impact velocity corresponds to the requirements demanded by
a birdstrike, and the point of impact was chosen as the most critical,
because of the presence of a compartment at the back of the leading
edge, which could have consequences on the controls of the aircraft
after the damage.
Fig. 3. General view of the leading edge and its assembly on the C27J aircraft.
107
3. Lay-up configuration
The aircraft leading edge structure was made in three different
plies. The outboard layup consists of A/0/90/A/90/0/A, in which A
referred to a layer of aluminium alloy 2024-T3 with a thickness
of 0.3 mm, and 0 and 90 are the glass/epoxy layer orientations
(FM 94-27%eS2 Glass 187e460); each glass layer had a thickness of
0.125 mm, giving a total specimen thickness of 1.4 mm.
The inboard ply is aluminium alloy 2024-T3 with an amount
thickness of 0.3 mm and core ply was a honeycomb aluminium
alloy with height core of 6.35 mm. The lay-up was shown in Fig. 4.
The significant mechanisms of energy absorption of this type of
sandwich structure are the localized crushing of the core and the
bending and stretching of the facings, while energy may be effec-
tively absorbed through both local crushing and global deflection of
the structural element as a whole. In order to construct suitable
crashworthy sandwich elements, it is necessary to utilize compo-
nents that have a high degree of energy absorption capability,
where both the individual and coupled properties of the facings
and cores play their part in absorbing birdstrike loads. The core of
a sandwich material must possess strength in shear to avoid rela-
tive sliding of the face plates when a bending deformation is
applied, then must be stiff enough to ensure flatness and to prevent
wrinkling of the intact portions of facings during the whole
crushing process.
4. Description of the FE model
FE consists of a bird and leading edge skin’s model. The leading
edge model was modelled firstly without ribs and then with ribs to
understand and quantify the influence of the ribs on the birdstrike
impact. 2D elements were used to represent the skin and 3D
elements to define the core and bird model. Eight-node brick
elements were employed for the sandwich honeycomb core
material modelling and two brick elements were distributed
through-thickness. The finite element solver was Msc/Dytran [16],
which uses explicit time integration. This code contains two finite
element solvers, Lagrangian (finite element) and Eulerian (finite
volume). The approach used in this work was the Lagrangian solver
so that the grid points are fixed to locations on the body under
analysis. Connecting the grid points together creates elements, and
the collection of elements produces a mesh. The Lagrangian solver
is therefore calculating the motion of elements of constant mass.
4.1. Bird
Various researchers have studied wax, foam, emulsion and
gelatine as the material for a bird replacement. Wilbeck and Rand
[13], conducted a very comprehensive testing study to develop
a substitute, synthetic bird model with various materials, shapes
and sizes. The conclusion was that a real bird can be modelled by
Fig. 4. Test specimen configuration.
108 M. Guida et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113

Fig. 5. Bird model.

a mixture of 95 volume percent water, air and porosity to account
the voids in real birds, and the bird density calculated is 950 kg/m3.
The 8-lb bird, was modelled as a cylinder 288 mm long and
a diameter of 144 mm, using eight-nodes underintegrated solid
elements characterized by a progressive refinement towards the
impacting end [15], see Fig. 5.
The bird was modelled with the properties of a fluid, giving an
initial velocity and defining a master-slave contact interfaces so to
apply the bird element loads to the structure. The non-
homogeneity of the bird is the main limitation to obtain the
repeatability of tests. The bird model consists of 1440 brick
elements. The bird impact process was modelled by the hydrody-
namic theory [17], where the impact response is determined by the
length of the bird and by the initial impact velocity but not by the
material strength. The material is defined with the properties of
a linear equation of state where the pressure is defined as:
 
r 4.3. Inboard: aluminium 2024 T3
P ¼ K 1
r0
where: P is a pressure in compression, K is the bulk modulus, r is
the density material and r0 is the reference density at which the
material has no pressure.
The bulk modulus, K, measures the resistance to uniform
compression. It is defined as the pressure increase needed to cause
a given decrease in volume, its value is 2200 MPa. Having consid-
ered the bird as a fluid, the peak pressure of the impact was
1.86 GPa.
4.2. Core: aluminium flexcore
The core of the configuration is a hexweb aluminium flexcore
developed by HexcelÒ; the cells manufactured from aluminium
alloy 5052 with core height of 6.35 mm, core cell size of 9.53 mm
and core cell wall thickness of 0.145 mm. For the honeycomb core
material an “Orthotropic Crushable Material Model” was used,
where the properties and the corresponding experimental stresse
strain curve under edgewise compression are shown in Fig. 6.
The input required for the material consists of two parts: the
crushing behaviour and fully compacted state [17].
The material properties used during progressive crushing are
reported in the Table 1, the elastic modules vary from their initial
values to the fully compacted values and the max shear stress are
reported in two perpendicular direction.
When the material is fully compacted, the material density r,
the elastic modulus E, Poisson’s ratio y and the relative volume are
reported in Table 2. This variation is linear with relative volume,
and the material behaviour was assumed to be elastic-perfectly
plastic with isotropic plasticity. The honeycomb model was simu-
lated with 22,240 brick elements.
(1)
The inboard skin of the leading edge used was made of an
aluminium alloy face sheet with 0.3 mm thickness. A piece-wise
elastic-plastic material law was used, while the failure model was
based on a maximum plastic strain of 18%, as in, [18].
In addition, a JohnsoneCook [16], yield model was to the basic
elastic plastic formulation to allow cut off of element strength at
high strains. The elastic plastic behaviour was input as a power law:
   
3_

sy ¼ a þ b3 np 1 þ c ln 1  T *m (2)
3_ 0
where 3 p is the effective plastic strain; a, b, n, c are constants, T is
temperature, 3_ is the effective strain rate, 3_ 0 is a reference strain
rate. The following values of the constants were used: a ¼ 277 MPa,
b ¼ 485 MPa and n ¼ 0.55 [17]. In the Table 3 the used material
properties are reported.
To simulate failure, elements were deleted once the plastic
strain exceeds the failure strain.

4.4. Outboard: fibre metal laminate

To simulate failure of the outboard fibre metal laminate, an

“Orthotropic failure material model”, was used. The experimental
results [22], showed that laminates exhibit an improvement in

Table 1
Core properties during crushing.

Young modulus full Max shear sL Max shear sW G13 G23

compacted E [GPa] [MPa] [MPa] [MPa] [MPa]
56 0.8 1 90 220

Where the subscript L and W indicate respectively the ribbon and the transverse
Fig. 6. Experimental compression stressestrain curve. directions.
 M. Guida et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113 109

Table 2 Table 4
Core fully compacted core properties. Material properties of the fiber metal laminate.

Young modulus E [GPa] Density r [kg/m3] Poisson n Relative volume [%] Young modulus Young modulus Yield stress Ultimate strength Strain at
70 2780 0.25 20 E1 [GPa] E2 [GPa] sy [MPa] sr [MPa] failure 3 r
30.7 30.7 310.3 631.4 0.064

tensile strength over their monolithic aluminium alloys, and

stressestrain behaviour is typically bilinear with a transition region 0.0 and 1.0. When failure occurs, the material constants E1, E2, G12,
associated with the yielding of aluminium layers. Glass fibre/epoxy n12, are set to zero in the corresponding unidirectional layer of the
composite layer of laminates is assumed to be linear elastic up to composite shell element.
fracture, and the elasto-plastic behaviour of aluminium layers
laminates was taken into account by introducing a plastic potential 3
function. This structure was modelled with 11,120 shell elements. s 2 1 þ aG12 s212
T ¼ 12 2 (6)
The material describes the elastic behaviour of brittle material S 3
with failure based on the interactive stress criteria of failure per 1 þ aG12 S2
2
mode. It includes the effects of directionality in the material stress
In the case of compressive fibre mode, failure is assumed in a ply
strain response allowing a different fibre orientation to be specified
whenever:
at each through thickness integration point for shell elements.
Unidirectional laminated fibre composite shell thickness, each
 
unidirectional layer (lamina) fibre orientation, and unidirectional s11
1 ðs11 < 0Þ (7)
layer constitutive constants are required as input [21]. XC
The elastic stressestrain relation between the fibre and matrix
stresses and strains is formulated as: where XC was 725 MPa.
Similar to the previous case, when failure occurs, material
    
s1 1 E1 v21 E1 31 constants E1, E2, n12, G12 are set to zero in the corresponding
¼ (3)
s2 ð1  v12 v21 Þ v21 E1 E2 32 unidirectional layer of the composite shell. Finally, regarding the
matrix failure is assumed in a ply whenever:
evaluated at t þ ð1=2ÞDt, as required by the central difference
scheme used by the explicit methods, the solution is known up to  
s 2
time t and use the central difference method to determine the Matrix cracking 22 þT  1 ðs22 > 0Þ
YT
solution at time t þ Dt.
The shear stressestrain relation proposed by Hahn and Tsai [19], s 2 Y 2  s
is defined as: Matrix compression 22 þ C
1 22
þ T  1 ðs22 < 0Þ
2S 2S YC
(8)
1
g12 ¼ s þ 3as312 (4)
G12 12 where YT and YC were 75 MPa, and Shear strength (S) was at 75 MPa.
The property degradation rules describe how stress increments are
where a is an experimentally derived value used to represent the related to strain increments in the various directions after failure in
nonlinear in-plane shear strainestress behaviour. Setting a to zero a particular mode has occurred. For example, in matrix compres-
reduces the elastic behaviour in relation to orthotropic Hooke’s sion failure, the material constants E2 (lateral Young’s modulus),
Law. For the prediction of failure, stress based failure criteria for the and n12 (Poisson’s ratio) are set to zero. Finally, the model describes
fibre and matrix failure under tensile, compressive and/or in-plane how the stresses are relaxed to zero after failure has occurred. The
shear loading were used, while delamination failure mechanisms relation can start either when a particular mode has failed or when
were not considered since the strain energy associated to this mode all material properties (E1, E2, n12, G12) are degraded to zero
is low compared to other failure mechanisms. In particular, the according to the property degradation rule. The relation always
ChangeChang failure criterion was used for the glass/epoxy plies. occurs in time, either in problem time units by a propagation
The basis of the model is the modification made by Matzen- velocity, or simply by time steps. This model is referred to as the
miller [20], to the well known Chang and Chang composite damage
model [17]. More specifically, failure is assumed in a ply subject to
tensile fibre mode whenever the following condition is true:

 2
s11
Fiber breakage : þT  1 ðs11 > 0Þ (5)
XT

where XT was 725 MPa.

It must be noted that T is a weighting factor for the ratio of the
shear stress to shear strength taking values in the range between

Table 3
Aluminium alloy material parameters.

Young modulus Yield stress sy Ultimate strength Failure strain 3r

E [GPa] [MPa] sr [MPa]
72 280 385 0.18
Fig. 7. Numerical time history of LE skin displacement.
110 M. Guida et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113

Fig. 8. Leading edge deformation: numerical and experimental result.

post-failure degradation rule. The basic material properties
required for this model are given in Table 4.
5. Numerical and experimental correlation
During the experimental test, two high-speed camera were used
to capture normal and transverse impact view.
Before the official certification test, the structure was studied
numerically to predict its behaviour under impact. Part of the
structure was validated with series of tests conducted on small
leading edge section, as reported in ref. [2] and [3], in this case the
optimised solution was chosen (layup, weight and performance
during impact). The Fig. 7 shows the numerical time history of the
maximum deflection experienced by the leading edge skin at the
impact point.
The max deflection recorded during the experimental tests was
approximately 150 mm while the residual displacement was
117 mm. This shows a good correlation with the calculated results
and the shape of both numerical and experimental data shown in
Fig. 8 are in excellent agreement. The skin did not suffer any
perforation and the designed structure was able to absorb the bird-
strike impact energy without any major failure.
The Fig. 9 shows a comparison of the final deformed shape of the
numerical and experimental tests is reported showing very similar
residual deformed behaviour.
The Fig. 10 shows the maximum deformation and the stress of
the FE model and the sequences of the impact captured during the
evolution of the bird strike phenomenon. The correlation step-by-
step allows to see as the behaviour of the structure during the
absorbing of the energy very similar to the experimental tests.
The comparison shows a very good agreement between the
experimental and the simulated birdstrike evolution. The simula-
tions showed that the birdstrike at 250 kts produced a large
deformation but the test is considered passed, because no pene-
tration was absorbed. The measured reaction loads were compared
with FE data as shown in Fig. 11 where, after an alignment of the
impact time it can be seen that the model predicted the nature and
size of the reaction loads reasonably well.
The instantaneous force calculated display a constant trend of
around 20 kN during the main birdstrike event. It does fluctuate to
some degree, which is partly explained using finite elements to

Fig. 9. Numeexp deformation and the stress on the FE model at last step.
 M. Guida et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113 111

Fig. 10. Numerical and experimental correlation at different steps.

represent the bird model. Preliminary data are unfiltered, during the bird model but determined by the mesh topology used. For
the phase of correlation with numerical data (as in Fig. 11), both a real bird the applied force will also fluctuate to some degree
results, numerical and experimental, were correlated considering because of the non-homogeneous shape and internal structure to
the CFC180 [24] filtered data. a bird.
Using finite elements and because the mass of the bird is lum-
ped at the nodes, the contact force between the bird and target will
fluctuate because the mass distribution is not homogeneous within

Fig. 11. THS impact force numeexp. Fig. 12. Von Mises stress on configuration with and without the ribs.
112 M. Guida et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 54 (2013) 105e113
Fig. 13. Energy THS on the FML and core elements.
The impact was simulated on the tailplane by introducing the
ribs, and as shown in Fig. 12, the flow of stresses for the configu-
ration ribless are much lower and they mainly concentrated in the
impact area.
For the classic configuration, failure of the material was expe-
rienced. For the ribless configuration, higher deformations were
experienced and a greater portion of structure absorbed the impact
energy, as shown in Fig. 12.
Fig. 14. Kinetic energy of skin.
Fig. 15. Kinetic energy of bird.
The Fig. 13 reports the strain energy of the skin and the core
during the impact, to understand the energy absorbed by each
component. It is evident that the amount of energy absorbed by the
core is much higher than the facing skins. Both curves increase
during with the evolution of impact until a steady value is achieved.
The kinetic energy is shown in Fig. 14 where an increasing
behaviour is observed associated to the transfer of impact energy
from the bird to the structure, than a decrease is expected since no
more energy is transferred.
This is seen clearly in Fig. 15 that shows the bird kinetic energy
during impact. The initial bird impact energy of about 32 kJ is
absorbed by the structural deformation in the LE and falls to
a constant value of about 3 kJ at 5 ms, at the end of the impact event
when the bird leaves the LE with reduced velocity.
The developed numerical models comprise a useful tool for the
analysis of the failure mechanisms and damage propagation of
a birdstrike scenario.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, the results of a numerical campaign aimed at
designing and analysing a novel ribless tailplane of a C27J aircraft is
reported validated by an experimental birdstrike test. Preliminary
tests on small components allowed us to calibrate the procedure to
be used for the full-scale structure. Results showed that the bird
impact location significantly influences the structural damage. An
innovative composite configuration was found able to satisfy the
minimum weight requirement. Moreover, a ribless configuration
was obtained with significant manufacturing advantages.
The comparison between numerical and experimental data
showed that good correlation was achieved, in terms of global
structural behaviour of the test article, confirming the validity of the
approach. In particular, the model was accurate to predict the final
deformed shape of the leading edge and the absence of foreign object
penetration, showing that the adopted FML material was able to
protect the inner LE structure and to satisfy certification requirements.
These results showed that advanced numerical simulation
techniques can significantly help to design safer and more efficient,
in terms of weight and manufacturing costs, aircraft structures able
to resist birdstrikes.
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