Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x
DOI 10.1007/s12206-014-0125-3

Bird strike analysis on a typical helicopter windshield with different lay-ups†

Reza Hedayati1,*, Saeed Ziaei-Rad2, Arameh Eyvazian3 and Abdel Magid Hamouda3
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
2
Isfahan University of Technology, 84156-83111 Isfahan, Iran
3
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar

(Manuscript Received March 25, 2013; Revised September 20, 2013; Accepted November 20, 2013)

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Abstract

In the current paper, bird strike to a typical helicopter windshield is investigated using smoothed particles hydrodynamic (SPH) finite
element method. Five types of lay-ups in a windshield (single layer stretch acrylic, single layer glass, two-wall cast acrylic, acrylic with
Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayer and glass with PVB interlayer) is considered and in each case the thickness which prevents the bird
from perforating the windshield is calculated. Since helicopters can have lateral movement in addition to their longitudinal movement,
the effect of incident angle on the integrity of windshield is also investigated. Simulations showed that among the five cases presented,
glass with PVB interlayer can be the best choice for being used in windshield against bird strike. Another conclusion is that for the same
initial velocity, the angled impact can cause more damage in the windshield than the direct impact.
Keywords: Bird strike; Windshield; Helicopter; PVB interlayer; Acrylic
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39 percentage of strikes and damages to helicopters, respec-

1. Introduction
tively [1]. In contrast, windshields represented 17 and 6 per-
Collision between birds and aircrafts, known as bird strike, cent, respectively, of all components struck and damaged for
has been one of the most important saftey threats posed on all aircraft types [2].
passengers and aviation industry. Many researchers have in- Considering the high percentage of windshield damage
vestigated bird impact effect on different parts of airplanes among other components of helicopters, as well as, high per-
such as tailplanes, wings, windshield, engines, etc. using centage of human injuries caused by bird strikes to helicopters,
theroretical, experimental or numerical methods. To authors’ makes it needful to investigate bird-windshield impact. That’s
best knowledge, there is not many available articles studying why it is required to make sure that the helicopter can resist
bird strike on helicopters. From 1990-2009, helicopters have against impacting birds. The requirement identified as CS
been involved in 491 (0.5 percent) of the 99420 reported bird 29.631 states that : “The rotorcraft must be designed to assure
strikes to civil aircraft. Of the 491 bird impacts to helicopters capability of continued safe flight and landing (for Category A)
reported, 242 (50 percent) caused damage and 69 (14 percent) or safe landing (for Category B) after impact with a 1 kg bird,
caused substantial damage to helicopters. The numbers and when the velocity of the rotorcraft (relative to the bird along the
percentages for all aircraft types are 29831(30 percent) for flight path of the rotorcraft) is equal to VNE or VH (whichever is
damage and 2924 (3 percent) for substantial damage. While the lesser) at altitudes up to 2438 m (8000 ft). Compliance
helicopters are involved in 0.5 percentage of all bird strike must be shown by tests, or by analysis based on tests carried
reported, they indicate 2 of 55 (4 percent) of aircrafts de- out on sufficiently representative structures of similar design.
stroyed and 36 of 217 (17 percent) of people injured. The VNE is never-exceed speed and VH is speed in level flight with
statistics show the importance of investigating bird strike on maximum continuous power. A typical helicopter windshield
different parts of helicopters [1]. after being damaged by bird is shown in Fig. 1.
Birds impact different components of helicopters such as Wilbeck [4] was one of the first researchers who investi-
windshield, fuselage, tail, etc. Table 1 lists the number of gated the experimental behavior of a bird under impact. His
strucks and damages caused by birds on different components conclusions and results have kept their importance till now
of helicopters. As it can be seen, windshields indicate 35 and since most numerical case studies carried out by other re-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 21 64543448, Fax.: +98 21 66419736 searchers used the same shape and characteristics as used in
E-mail address: rezahedayati@gmail.com Wilbeck’s report. Also, results from his experimental data
†
Recommended by Associate Editor Kyeongsik Woo
© KSME & Springer 2014 were used as a reference for comparison with numerical re-
1382 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392

Table 1. Helicopter components struck and damaged by birds [1]. ments, the size of elements decreases excessively in one direc-
tion of them which causes very short time steps resulting in
% Struck Damaged
solution problems. Stoll and Brockman [7] tried to overcome
Number % of total Number % of total
the problem by eliminating highly distorted elements. This,
Windshield 283 35 150 39 however, leads to the bird mass loss during the impact. Due to
Rotor 165 20 43 11 drawbacks of the Lagrange method, other formulations have
Nose 91 11 44 11 been used for bird strike problems.
Fuselage 77 9 26 7 Arbitrary Lagranian Eulerian (ALE) method is one of the al-
Radome 21 3 11 3 ternative formulations for bird strike. ALE is a combination of
Tail 23 3 15 4 the Lagrange and Eulerian formulations in which the reference
Light 9 1 8 2 is set arbitrarily by the user in order to capture the advantages
of the methods while minimizing the disadvantages. In this
Engine 24 3 3 1
method, each element is allowed to contain more than one
Landing gear 10 1 4 1
material. For bird strike problem, the bird is modeled to be
Other 109 14 76 20
surrounded by atmospheric air. Unlike in Lagrangian formula-
Total 815 100 384 100 tion, the material does not always follow the distortion and
movementof the mesh but instead is rezoned at each advection
phase. At the beginning of the analysis, the denser material is
concentrated in one part of the mesh, but as the analysis pro-
gresses, the fluid is allowed to flow everywhere. Some finite
elements analysis software even makes it possible to only
model the fluid [33]. At each time step, the position of the ma-
terial is evaluated with respect to the nodes. The coupling with
a solid structure is done by tracking the relative displacements
between the coupled Lagrangian nodes and the bird. However,
mesh distortion can become an issue with the ALE method if
the elements’ volume becomes negative, and it is often difficult
to track material interface and history [17]. Moffat and Cleg-
Fig. 1. A typical helicopter windshield damaged by a bird [3]. horn [8] developed a bird model using an ALE description.
They reproduced the impacts of the bird in rigid and flexible
targets. The data obtained from the simulated model was close
sults. The disadvantage of experimental approach to bird to experimental results carried out by Barber et al. [9]. The
strike is that for each bird velocity, target geometry and mate- main disadvantage this method has is its necessity to mesh
rial and different angles the tests are necessary to be carried adjustment in every advection in order to follow material and
out. High costs and time-consuming procedures of doing tests not allowing mesh ditortion, which increases solution time
make them unappealing. Many authors tried to approach bird greatly. Further examples for ALE bird strike simulations are
strike problems theoretically, but due to its limitations for found in Ref. [10] for fan blade impact and in Ref. [11] for
complex geometries and material models, its usage remained impact on fuselage panels, in Ref. [12] on a cockpit bulkhead
somehow infrequent. The presence and development of pow- plate, in Ref. [13] on a composite plate, in Ref. [14] on a lead-
erful computers since late 90s, made it possible to study nu- ing edge and in Ref. [15] on a rotor spinner [16].
merous bird strike problems much efficiently. The most recent and efficient formulation used for bird
A trustworthy analytical tool is necessary to reliably predict strike problems is smoothed particles hydrdynamics (SPH). It
the structural responses of bird and target. The use of finite is a mesh-less Lagrangian technique used to model fluids.
element (FE) simulation provides the opportunity to effec- Since in high velocities, the bird behaves as a fluid, this
tively evaluate numerous structural design approaches that method can be correctly used to model bird-target interactions.
minimize structural weight and reduce the risk of not meeting In this formulation, the fluid is represented as a set of moving
civil or military birdstrike design requirements. In this method, particles, each one representing an interpolation point, where
the solution domain is decomposed into elements. Inside each all the fluid properties are known. Then, with a regular inter-
element, the field is approximated by polynomials of specific polation function called smoothing length the solution of the
orders. Stiffness and mass matrices are then calculated by desired quantities can be calculated for all the particles. In
minimizing the potential energy of the discretised system. practice, the SPH method uses fewer elements than the ALE
Many researches such as Neiring [5] and Donea et al. [6] have method, avoids the material interface problems associated
investigated bird-target impacts using FE lagrangian method. with it and has a shorter solution time. It also follows the flow
Lagrangian method is a common formulation in solid of the bird much more accurately than the previous methods,
mechancis problems, but due to high distortion of bird ele- especially in the case of secondary bird strike (if the bird is
 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392
deflected to another structural component) [17].
Lavoie et al. [18] used gelatine masses as substitute for real
birds. They used ALE and SPH methods to simulate the tests
conducted. They concluded that both numerical models are
quite acceptable, but the SPH approach models the deforma-
tions of bird better than ALE. They also concluded that the
SPH method is faster. In the current paper, the SPH technique
has been used for all the simulation due to advantages men-
tioned above. SPH bird impactors for impact on fan blades are
documented in Ref. [19], for impact on engine nacelles in Ref.
[20], on a windshield in Ref. [21], on composite plates in Ref.
[22], and on wing flaps in Ref. [23]. More references can be
found in [16] for simulations carried out using Lagrange, ALE,
and SPH.
Bird Strike event to airplane transparent components has
also been studied by many authors. In 1978, University of
Dayton Research Institute developed MAGNA (materially
and geometrically nonlinear analysis) computer program for
use as an aircraft transparency analysis and design tool. Some
author used this program for designing different windshields
[24, 25]. Finite Element methods have also been used for
windshield bird strike problems. In 2008, Guida et al. [26, 27]
carried out Sensitivity studies to assess the influence of geo-
metrical parameters such as panel dimensions, thickness, cur-
vature, as well as impact parameters, bird size and velocity,
impact angle, boundary conditions. They concluded that glass
materials are very brittle and require little energy to create the
first failure in the material. The possibility to create a compos-
ite material as an union of the viscoelastic material, as PVB, to
the glass material aids the possibility to create a safety product
because if glass breaks, the interlayer retains the glass frag-
ments. They also concluded that geometric shape of the wind-
shield due to double curvature of the surface and very consid-
erable impact angle are favorable to reduce the effects of the
strike.
In 2009, Wang and Yue [28] used the updated Kirchhoff
stress tensors and strain tensors deduced the incremented form
of a damage-modified nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive
model and its failure criterion. In their work, a contact-impact
coupling algorithm and the explicit dynamic finite element
program LS-DYNA were applied to simulate the damage and
failure process of windshield structure under three kinds of
bird strike velocities. The damage-modified nonlinear visco-
elastic constitutive model and its failure criterion were imple-
mented into the user material program. The results showed
that the damage and failure of windshield under bird strike can
be effectively simulated.
In the current paper, bird strike to a typical helicopter wind-
shield is investigated using finite element method by means of
LS-DYNA code. Five type of lay-ups in a windshield is con-
sidered and in each case the thickness which prevents the bird
from perforating the windshield is calculated and presented.
Since helicopters can have lateral movement in addition to
their longitudal movement, the effect of incedent angle on the
integrity of windshield is investigated. Before simulating the
1383
(a) (b)
Fig. 2. The geometrical setup of the bird and windshield before impact.
bird striking the windshield, the numerical model is validated
by means of the three finite element methods mentioned ear-
lier: Lagrangian, SPH and ALE. After validating the numeri-
cal models, due to its great advantages over the other two
methods, the SPH technique is employed to model bird im-
pacting the windshield.
2. Windshield modeling
2.1 Windshield and bird discretization
The geometrical setup and discretization of the bird and
windshield before impact process is shown from two views in
Fig. 2. Five cases are considered and studied in the paper:
Single layer stretch acrylic, single layer glass, two-wall cast
acrylic, acrylic with PVB interlayer and glass with PVB inter-
layer (Fig. 3). In all the simulations, the windshield structure
consists of elements of size of approximately 1.5 cm. In cases
in which the windshield is single layered or has two separated
walls, shell elements have been used. In cases in which the
windshield has interlayer, five layers of solid 8-noded ele-
ments have been employed to model it. In single-layered
(cases 1 and 2), two-walled (case 3) and three-layered (cases 4
and 5), the windshield consisted of 8947, 13039 and 27360
elements, respectively. In cases 4 and 5, the windshield thick-
ness consists of five solid elements in which the middle ele-
ment is related to the PVB interlayer and the other four ele-
ments are related to acrylic or glass.
2.2 Windshield material models
Four types of materials are used for the windshield: stretch
acrylic, cast acrylic, PVB and glass. The stress-strain behaviour
of stretch acrylic is nonlinear and temperature-dependent. A
number of tension tests was designed and carried out on some
stretch acrylic samples. As it can be seen from Fig. 4, the
stress-strain behaviour of stretch acrylic can be considered
bilinear elastic-plastic, although a nonlinear material model
would have been a better choice based on the tabular input of
the experimental curve. According to Fig. 3, the failure strain
for stretch acrylic can be taken as 2.3%. The mechanical prop-
erties of stretch acrylic are listed in Table 2. Similar to stretch
1384 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392

Table 2. Mechanical properties of stretch acrylic.

Density 1180 kg/m3

Poisson’s ratio 0.4
Elasticity modulus 3.17 GPa
Yield stress 73 MPa
Tangent modulus 0
Hardening parameter 0.5
Failure strain 2.3%

Table 3. Mechanical properties of cast acrylic.

Density 1180 kg/m3

Poisson’s ratio 0.4
Elasticity modulus 3 GPa
Yield stress 60 MPa
Tangent modulus 0
Hardening parameter 0.5
Failure strain 2.5%

Fig. 3. Different lay-ups considered for windshield.

Table 4. Mechanical properties of soda-lime glass [29].

Density 2500 kg/m3

Poisson’s ratio 0.22
Elasticity modulus 68 GPa
Yield stress 238 MPa
Failure strain 0.35%

Table 5. Mechanical properties of PVB interlayer [29].

Density 1076 kg/m3

Short-time shear modulus 330 MPa
Long-time shear modulus 0.69 MPa
Fig. 4. Stress-strain behaviour of stretch acrylic. Bulk modulus 2 GPa
Decay coefficient 12.6 s-1
Failure strain 175%
acrylic, a number of tension tests was designed and carried out
on cast acrylic. Its behaviour can also be taken as bilinear elas-
tic-plastic and the failure strain for it can be considered 2.5%.
Mechanical properties of cast acrylic are listed in Table 3. outer (acrylic or glass) and inner layer (PVB) act in two dif-
Glass is an isotropic, transparent and amorphos material and ferent ways. In small deformations, outer layer behaves in a
has a high brittleness if subjected to dynamic or static loads. linear way while it can not stand large deformations. In case of
The most common type of glass used in avian industries is large deformations, the PVB interlayer plays a key roll due to
soda-lime which mainly consists of silica. The mechanical its high capacity of load-carrying. PVB has a good charasteris-
properties of soda-lime glass are listed in Table 4. For glass, tic of transparency and strength and shows a high deformation
an elastic-plastic material model with a small plastic part of before failure which is the sign of having high tearing strength.
the s - e curve can be considered, so that it could be treated In this paper, for PVB a linear viscoelastic material model is
like brittle materials [29]. The stress-strain curve used for used and its shear relaxation behavior can be stated as:
glass is shown in Fig. 5 and compared to those of cast acrylic
and stretch acrylic. As it can be seen, the yield stress, rupture G ( t ) = G¥ + ( G0 - G¥ ) e - βt . (1)
stress and ultimate tensile stress are the same for glass due to
its brittleness. Stress and strain are related to each other through Jaumann
In cases 4 and 5 (glass or acrylic with PVB interlayer) the rate formula:
 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392
Fig. 5. Stress-strain curve used for glass, cast acrylic and stretch
acrylic.
Fig. 6. The SPH bird model.
where the prime denotes the deviatoric part of the stress rate
s& ij , and the strain rate, Dij (t ) [30]. Mechanical properties
used for PVB interlayer are listed in Table 5. In all the impact
simulations carried out in this study, the effect of velocity of
load application and the strain-rate effect have been consid-
ered. The strain rate behavior is described by the Cowper Sy-
monds constitutive equation:
1/ p
sn æ e& ö
=1+ ç ÷
sy èDø
where p and D are constant for each material. For the glass, D
= 1000 and p = 100 [31]; for PVB, D = 80 and p = 6.7 [31];
and for acrylic, D = 40 and p = 4 are considered [32].
3. Bird modeling
At high pressures, the bird material behaves as a hydrody-
namic material, for which an equation of state (EOS) relating
the thermodynamic properties of pressure, p , and volume is
adopted. So far, a number of equation of states such as: tabu-
lated, linear polynomial and Gruneisen have been imple-
mented by different authors. In this paper a Gruneisen EOS is
employed due to its higher efficency and accuracy. Depending
on being stretched or compressed, Gruneisen material model
states the pressure-volume relationship in two ways [32]. In
compression:
1385
é æ g0 ö a ù
r0 C 2 m ê1 + ç1 - ÷ m - m2 ú
ë è 2ø 2 û
P= 2
+ (g 0 + am ) E
é m2 m3 ù
ê1 - ( S1 - 1) m - S 2 -S
ë m + 1 3 ( m + 1) 2 úû
(4)
and in tension:
P = r 0 C 2 m + (g 0 + am ) E (5)
where C is the intercept of the v s - v p curve; S1 , S2 and
S3 are the coefficients of the slope of the v s - v p curve; r0
is the Gruneisen gamma; and m = r / ri - 1 where r is the
material density. The gruneisen EOS’s parameters for water
are C = 1480, S1 = 1.92, S2 = 0, S3 = 0 and g 0 = 0.1 [33].
The total mass of the impacting bird was set to 1 kg according
to CS 29.631 requirement. As being suggested by many au-
thors previously, a density of 938 kg/m3is used for the bird
model.
Since the bird anatomy consists of severeal complex com-
ponents such as air bags, bone structures, etc., it’s not conven-
ient to model a bird with geometry the same as its real body.
That’s why bird-strike researchers have simplified the bird
torso using basic geometry shapes: straight-ended cylinder,
hemispherical-ended cylinder, ellipsoid and sphere. Several
studies have been carried out on the appropriate shape of the
(2)
bird, and the hemispherical-ended cylinder with a length to
diameter of 2 has been suggested [34-36]. Considering the
hemispherical-ended cylinder and using geometrical relation-
ships the diameter of the bird can be calculated as:
8m
D= (6)
3 æ4 ö
pr ç + 2 ÷
è 3 ø
where D, m and r are the bird model diameter, mass and
density respectively. By replacing the mass of 1 kg and den-
(3)
sity of 938 kg/m3, the diameter of the bird is calculated as
D = 9.3 cm . The initial velocity of the bird is set to 67 m/s
according to CS 29.631. The bird is modeled using 11704
SPH elements using LS-DYNA PrePost. The finite element
model of the bird is shown in Fig. 6.
4. Validation of the numerical model
In order to validate the numerical model of bird impacting
the target, an experimental test conducted by Wilbeck [4] is
simulated and their results are compared. A round solid plate
with thickness of 6 cm and radius of 30 cm is used for the
target. The dimensions and mechanical properties of the target
are the same of that in experimental test. The accuracy of
modeling a bird strike (bird material model, bird shape, con-
tact formulation, controlling algorithms, etc.) can be evaluated
by comparing some parameters between simulation results
and test data. For simulating contact, a NODE_TO_
1386 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392

Fig. 7. Deformation of the bird model obtained from different methods.

Fig. 8. Pressure at the center of impact for Lagrange, SPH and ALE
methods in perpendicular impact.

SURFACE contact algorithm was implemented. In order to

control hourglass, Flanagan-Belytschko integration with hour-
glass coefficient of QH = 0.4 was used. The bird elements
were set to be removed after their volume exceeded 1.1 or 0.8
of their intial volume. For the SPH particles, renormalization
approximation was used.
Generally, pressure-time responses from a rigid target due
to bird impact are similar and can be separated into four dis-
tinct phases: (A) initial shock regime, (B) pressure decay re-
gime, (C) steady state regime, and (D) pressure termination
regime. The pressure values measured at the center of impact
at the end of phase (A) and during the phase (C) are called the
hugoniot and steady-state pressures, respectively. Bird strike
researchers usually compare these two pressures calculated
between simulation and test pressure plots. As result, a sensor Fig. 9. Pressure at the center of impact for Lagrange, SPH and ALE
is attached at the center of impacted disc to measure pressure methods in inclined impact.
variations over time for the simualtion. According to test
specifications the bird initial velocity is set to 116 m/s and the
5. Results and analysis
bird mass is chosen to be 1 kg. For the bird model, a hemi-
spherical-ended cylinder geometry is used and the density of The selected bird model was impacted to the helicopter
938 kg/m3 is chosen for it as it is suggested by many authors. windshiled with five different lay-ups and in each case the
Two sets of impact with angles of 90 degrees (perpendicu- optimum thickness (the minimum thickness which does not
lar) and 30 degrees (inclined) are simulated and in each set the allow bird penetration) was found.
results are compared between Lagrange, ALE and SPH meth-
ods, as well as test results by Wilbeck [4]. The results will Case 1: single-layer acrylic
suggest the best method to model bird strike event. The de- Deformation of the bird and windshield with thickness of
formation of the bird model obtained from different methods 2.5 mm over time is shown in Fig. 10. As it can be seen from
with respect to time can be seen in Fig. 7. The profiles at the the figure, the windshield with thickness of 2.5 mm is not
center of impact for the three methods and experimental test is strong enough to withstand bird and bird impact makes the top
plotted in Fig. 8 for perpendicular impact and in Fig. 9 for part of the windshield to be ruptured. The windshield moves
inclined impact. It noteworthy to say that in the three models, down and its downward movement continues until it compe-
the element size of bird model is similar, i.e. eight elements letely bends around its waist. This is dangerous because of
through its radius. As it can be seen from Figs. 8 and 9, all the two reasons: first, when the bird passes through the wind-
three methods predict close hugoniot and steady-state pres- shield, it can enter the cockpit and collide with pilot’s head.
sures to each other and to test results in both perpendicular and This collision may lead to pilot’s inconscient and then down-
inclined impacts. Due to reasons stated earlier in the paper, the fall of the helicopter. Second, the windshield itself can collide
most recent method, i.e. the SPH method is chosen for bird with pilot’s head while moving downward rapidly. In order to
modeling in the following sections. strenghthen the windshield, its thickness was increased to 2.5,
 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392 1387

Fig. 12. Internal energy absorbed by the windshield with different

thicknesses (Case 1: single-layer acrylic).

Fig. 10. Deformation of the bird and windshield with thickness of 2.5
mm (Case 1: single-layer acrylic).

Fig. 13. Variation of internal and kinetic energy of windshield and bird.

Fig. 11. Y-direction displacement of the uppermost point of the wind-

shield for different thicknesses (Case 1: single-layer acrylic).

3.25, 4, 5 and 7.5 mm.

In order to investigate the movement of windshield ele-
ments more accurately, y-direction displacement of the up-
permost point of the windshield is plotted for different thick-
nesses in Fig. 11. Y is the direction parallel to the helicopter
main rotor axis of rotation. As it can be seen from the figure,
increasing the thickness, the y direction displacement de-
creases. While for thicknesses of 2.5 to 6 mm, the uppermost
element moves from its initial position, for the thickness of 7.5
mm the element remains at its initial position and vibrates
around its initial location.
The internal energy absorbed by the windshield with differ-
ent thicknesses is plotted over time in Fig. 12. In cases in
which the windshiled is penetrated, by increasing the thick-
ness, the internal energy increases. That’s due to the fact that
the higher the windshield thicknesses is, the velocity of more
mass of the bird is declined whereby it leads to more transition
of energy from bird to windshield. But unlike this trend, when
the thickness is increased from 6 to 7.5 mm, the windshield
Fig. 14. The internal energy contour of the windshield elements a short
time before being torn up.
internal energy is decreased greatly in such a way that its final
value is lower than any other thickness. The explanation is
that no penetration in the windshield causes all the bird mass
return and pass by windshield. Since the windshield is not
deformed a lot and it deforms elastically, its final internal en-
ergy becomes smaller than that in other thicknesses.
The variations of internal and kinetic energies of the wind-
shield and bird are shown in Fig. 13. The bird kinetic energy
decreases permanently until the windshield is torn up at t =
0.0085s. The time t = 0.008 is also a peak for the internal en-
1388 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392
Fig. 15. The final shape of the windshield for different thicknesses
(Case 2: single-layer glass).
ergy profile of the windshield. This is because before that time,
the elastic deformation of the windshield causes its internal
energy increase, while after the tearing time, the windshield is
freer to move which decreases its internal energy. As obvious,
unlike the windshield that has an oscillating internal energy
profile, the bird’s internal energy increases permanently. Fig.
14 shows the internal energy contour of the windshield ele-
ments a short time before being torn up. The right and top
sides of the windshield tolerate the highest stress levels (even
higher than the location the bird impacts), which causes the
windshield being initially torn in those two regions.
Case 2: single-layer glass
In this case, the windshield model is identical to that in case
1 except for its material. Glass possesses higher mechanical
strength -elasticity modulus, density and yield stress- than
acrylic, but on the other hand, it has lower failure strain.
Therefore, using glass instead of acrylic may make windshield
stronger or weaker. The final shape of the windshield made of
glass for different thicknesses can be seen in Fig. 15. As it can
be seen, windshield with thickness of 2.5, 4 and 5 mm is pene-
trated after bird strike, but the windshield with thickness of 6
mm doesn’t permit any penetration. The first difference be-
tween cases 1 and 2 is that the optimum thickness for case 1
was 7.5 mm. The other difference is that in case 2, the failure
is localized around the first point bird strikes while for case 1,
the windshield fails first from its uppermost part. Another
difference is that while in case 1, by increasing the thickness
of windshield the fauilure decreases gradually, in case 2 by
increasing the thickness from 5 to 6 mm, its wide-spread rup-
ture fades completely. While glass windshield can stand bird
strike with lower thickness than acrylic could, it is greatly
recommended to use acrylic for windshield. It’s because of
Fig. 16. Final shape of two wall stretch acrlylic for different thick-
nesses (Case 3: two wall stretch acrylic).
two reasons: first, after being failed, the glass crashes into very
small and sharp fragments which is so dangerous for the pass-
negers and the pilot, while in acrylic windshield the failure
mode is different. secondly, in glass the failure is local which
can increase the probability of bird collision with pilot’s head
significantly.
Case 3: two wall stretch acrylic
The material, boundry conditions and other specification in
this case is identical to those in case 1. The only difference is
that the windshiled is not single-layered and has two separate
stretch acrylic walls. First, the bird impact to the windshield
with thickness of 1 mm for each wall was investigated. Then
the thickness was increased from 1 mm for each wall to obtain
the optimum thickness which does not allow any penetration.
In each simulation, the thickness of both walls are identical
and the distance between the center lines of the walls is 1 mm.
The reason for using two-wall acrylic windshield instead of
single layer acrylic windshield is that the former may require
less overall thickness for being resistant against bird strike.
That’s because in the latter, the aim can be the integrity of
inner wall and not both the walls. The final shape of two wall
stretch acrlylic for different thicknesses can be seen in Fig. 16.
As it is visible, by increasing the thickness, the final displace-
ment of the upper part of the windshield decreases.
As it was stated above, the aim of using two wall acrylic in-
stead of single layer acrylic is that its overall thickness may be
lower and it may need less material to be constructed from. In
order to better compare cases 1 and 3, the y-displacement of
 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392
Fig. 17. Y-displacement of the uppermost part of cases 1 and 3 for
same thicknesses.
Fig. 18. Displacement of the first point of the windshield the bird
touches for different thicknesses (Case 4: acrylic with PVB interlayer).
the uppermost part of them for same thicknesses (in case 1 the
thickness of windshield and in case 3 the overall thickness of
the two walls) has been plotted in Fig. 17. As it can be seen, in
all the thicknesses, the single layer case shows less displace-
ment. In the particular thickness of 8 mm, the single layer
windshiled has the final displacement of almost zero, while the
two wall windshiled shows the final displacement of 10 cm.
Case 4: acrylic with PVB interlayer
In this case, the windshiled has three layers: two outer
acrylic layers and one inner PVB layer. Since there are three
layers through the thickness, the solid elements have been
used instead of shell elements. In order to better follow bend-
ing of the windshiled and in order to prevent hourglass effects,
5 elements have been used through the thickness. The middle
element is contributed to PVB and the other four elements are
given acrylic properties. Using 5 layers of solid element in-
stead of single layer of shell element increases the solution
time to a great extent. Simulating the bird strike with wind-
shiled thickness of 3 mm shows no penetration. Decreasing
the thickness to 1.5 mm also showed no penetration, although
1389
Fig. 19. Final shape of the 2 mm windshield with different initial ve-
locities (Case 4: acrylic with PVB interlayer).
lead to an increase in displacement of the first point of the
windshield that bird impacts in the initial phases of impact.
The displacement of the first point the bird touches is plotted
in Fig. 18 for different thicknesses.
As it was emphasized above, the windshield with thickness
of 2 mm does not allow any penetration when the bird impacts
it with the velocity of 67 m/s. While the glass passes the re-
quirements for CS29, it was decided to investigate the wind-
shield resistance against bird with initial velocities higher than
67 m/s, although it is an impossible event for helicopters. The
final shape of a 2 mm windshield with initial velocities of 67,
120, 150 and 180 m/s can be seen in Fig. 19. As obvious, for
initial velocities of 67, 90 and 120 m/s, the winshield is ok at
the end of impact, while the windshield shows minor and ex-
tent penetrations for initial velocities of 150 and 180 m/s, re-
spectively.
Case 5: glass with PVB interlayer
This case is similar to case 4 except for the outer layers
which are changed to glass. While glass has higher mechani-
cal strength than acrylic -higher modulus of elasticity, density
and yield stress-, its failure strain is much lower. That’s why
using glass instead of acrylic might lead to both more strength
or weakness of windshield against bird strike. Simulating bird
strike with windshield of thicknesses of 1.5, 2 and 3 mm
shows no penetration. The displacement of the first point of
the windshield that bird first touches is plotted for different
thicknesses in Fig. 20. As it could be precdicted, decreasing
the thickness leads to increase in the displacement, although
the final displacement for all thicknesses is zero.
The other subject of ineterst is to find out that in which of
the cases of 4 or 5, the windshield is more resistant against
1390 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392

Table 6. The safe thickness and mass for each case.

Safe thickness Weight

Single layer acrylic 7.5 mm 3.1 kg
Single layer glass 6 mm 5.21 kg
Two-wall acrylic 12 mm 4.96 kg
Acrylic with PVB interlayer <1.5 mm < 0.55 kg
Glass with PVB interlayer <1.5 mm < 1.2 kg

Fig. 20. Displacement of the first point of the windshield that bird first
touches for different thicknesses (Case 5: glass with PVB interlayer).

Fig. 22. Helicopter windshield from top view.

Velocity = 90 m/s Velocity = 150 m/s

+15 degrees 0 degrees -15 degrees

Fig. 23. Final shape of windshield after bird impact with angles of
zero, -15 and +15.

6. Mass comparison of safe windshields

Velocity = 210 m/s Velocity = 240 m/s
Fig. 21. Final shape of the 2 mm windshield with different initial ve-
locities (Case 5: glass with PVB interlayer).
bird strike, although in both cases the windshield with thick-
ness of 1.5 mm is resistant against bird strike. To better com-
pare the two cases, the initial velocity which causes penetra-
tion in windshield is obtained and compared to each other.
The final shape of the windshield with thickness of 2 mm is
shown in Fig. 21 for different velocities. As it can be seen,
velocities equal or lower than 180 m/s do not cause any dam-
age while the volicities of 210 and 240 cause minor and extent
penetrations, respectively. Comparing 240 m/s in acse 5 to
180 m/s in case 4, shows more strength of windshield in case
5 than in case 4.
After identifying the minimum thickness that is necessary
for each case, the weight of the safe windshield for each case
can be interesting. The corresponding thickness and mass
values for each case is listed in Table 6. As it can be seen, the
safe mass of acrylic with PVB interlayer is the lowest (0.55
kg), while the safe mass of single layer glass is the highest
(5.21 kg). A mong the cases with no interlayer, the single
layer acrylic is apparently the best choice in terms of mass.
7. Effect of impact angle
Since the helicopter can have lateral movement too, in this
subsection the effect of angle at which a bird strikes the wind-
shield is investigated. The helicopter windshield is shown in
Fig. 22 from top view. Three angles: zero, -15 and +15 are
specified in the figure. In order to keep brevity and simplicity
in comparison between angles, in all the simulations in this
subsection, the windshield is a single layer acrylic with thick-
 R. Hedayati et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (4) (2014) 1381~1392
Table 7. The optimum thickness for different impact angles.
+15 9 mm
Zero 7.5 mm
-15 7.5 mm
Fig. 24. Displacement uppermost point of the windshield.
ness of 3.25 mm. The initial speed of bird is again set to 67
m/s for the three angles. The final shape of windshield after
bird impacts with angles of zero, -15 and +15 are shown in Fig.
23. As it can be seen, the windshield final shape is similar to
each other in impacts with angles of zero and -15, but it’s
different for the angle of +15. In order to better compare the
three cases, the displacement of the uppermost point of the
windshield is plotted and compared in Fig. 24. As it can be
seen, again the displacement of angles of zero and -15 are
close while it is higher for angle +15. The other parameter
which can be important is the thickness which does not allow
any penetration in impacts with different angles. For each case,
a number of simulations was conducted and the optimum
thickness was obtained. The results are listed in Table 7 and
show the similarity between results of angles zero and -15.
8. Conclusions
In this paper, five different lay-ups that can be used in the
construction of windshield was investigated and optimum
thickness for each case was obtained. The cases considered
were: single layer acrylic, single layer glass, two-wall acrylic,
acrylic with PVB interlayer and glass with PVB interlayer.
Overally it can be conculded that using PVB interlayer can
increase the strength of the windshield dramatically. The two
types of windshields with PVB interlayer (acrylic and glass
with PVB interlayers) show no penetration for thickness of 1.5
mm, and can properly comply with CS 29 requirements.
Anyway, it was shown that in very dangerous situations, using
glass instead of acrylic in 3-layer windshields can be more
trustworthy. It was also shown that using a single layer wind-
shield is safer than the two-wall windshield with the same
overall thickness. Another finding is that in the single layer
1391
windshield, using acrylic instead of glass makes it safer due to
its unti-fragmenting property. Considering all the lay-ups
simulated, it was found that glass with PVB interlayer can be
the best choice for being used in windshield against bird strike
which would need experimental validation for final verifica-
tion. The other conclusion was that for the same initial veloc-
ity, the angled impact can cause more damage in the wind-
shield than the direct impact.
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Reza Hedayati completed his Ph.D. at
Amirkabir University of Technology
and his undergraduate studies at Isfahan
University of Technology. His research
interests lie in the area of Impact engi-
neering, Composite structures, Multis-
cale Finite Element modeling, and Ex-
perimental Mechanics. In recent years,
he has focused on better techniques for modeling and analyz-
ing bird impact on different components of aircraft such as
tailplane, windshield, and fuselage.