International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101

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International Journal of Impact Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijimpeng

A novel design for reinforcing the aircraft tail leading edge structure
against bird strike
TagedPD1X XJun LiuD2XaX , D3X XYulong LiDa,
4X X *, D5X XXiancheng YuD6XaX , D7X XZhongbin TangDa8X X , D9X XXiaosheng GaoD10XbX , D1X XJun LvD12XcX ,
c
D13X XZhengli ZhangD14X X
TagedPa School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA
c
Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. Shanghai, 200120, China

TAGEDPA R T I C L E I N F O TAGEDPA B S T R A C T

Article History: This paper presents the work performed to design a novel tail leading edge structure by employing the finite
Received 31 December 2015 element method coupled with the SPH method to simulate the bird strike process. The bird is simulated by
Revised 25 December 2016 the SPH model while the structure is modeled with the traditional Lagrangian elements. Bird strike experi-
Accepted 28 December 2016
ments are conducted to validate the numerical model. Good agreements between simulation and experi-
Available online 5 January 2017
mental results showed that the coupled SPH-FE method provides a valid and effective means to predict the
deformation and damage behavior of aircraft structures subjected to bird strike. Thus, it can be used as a
TagedPKeywords:
tool to design bird strike-resistant structures. It is found that the novel design, which introduces a triangular
Bird strike
Design
reinforcement component to the leading edge structure, greatly enhances the anti-bird strike performance.
Experiment Finally bird strike simulations and experiments are conducted for the Horizontal tail leading edge of a com-
Simulation mercial aircraft with the above mentioned novel design. No penetration on the frontal beam is observed,
Tail leading edge suggesting that the novel design meet the certification requirement of CCAR part 25.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

1. Introduction
TagedPAccording to the aeronautical specifications, the term “bird
strike” means the collision between a bird and an aircraft front fac-
ing component, such as the windshield, nacelles, wing leading edge
and engine primary compressor blades, etc. During the take-off and
landing, the probability of bird strike is high in the airport area, espe-
cially in the early morning and late afternoon [1]. Such accident can
cause serious damage to aircraft structure, presenting a direct threat
to the flight safety. To ensure flight safety, bird strike resistance
must be considered in the aircraft design process.
TagedPBird impact experiment provides a direct method to examine a
component's bird strike resistance. With rapid development of the
computer technology and the finite element method, numerical sim-
ulation is proven to be a viable alternative method to design and cer-
tify bird strike resistant component more economically.
TagedPBy using the explicit finite element method, Guo et al. [2] simu-
lated bird strike on a composite tail leading edge and the results
showed that the original design did not meet the anti-bird impact
requirement set by the aviation regulations. Smojver and Ivancevic
[3
5] conducted finite element analyses to predict bird strike
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 29 88494859
E-mail address: liyulong@nwpu.edu.cn (Y. Li).
TagedPinduced damage on the high lift devices of a typical large transport
aircraft. To evaluate the accuracy of their numerical model, the bird
and composite damage models were validated against experimental
data available in the literature.
TagedPGuida et al. [6] carried out the design of a wing leading edge by
employing finite element method coupled with a meshless method,
where the classical FE approach was adopted to model the wing
leading edge and the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) was
used for modelling the bird. They also conducted bird strike experi-
ments to validate their numerical model. Heimbs [7] employed the
coupled Eulerian
Lagrangian (CEL) modeling method to simulate
the high velocity impact on the composite structures loading by the
soft body projectiles. As an example, bird impact on a composite
wing leading edge was analyzed. Jenq et al. [8] simulated the
dynamic response of a model bird projectile striking a rigid flat
panel, where hemi-spherical cylindrical tip-ended soft material was
employed to model the bird. They considered the Lagrangian, Euler-
ian, and Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) methods in their
numerical analyses and compared the simulated dynamic pressure
history with Wilbeck's test result. It was found that the coupled-field
Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian method resulted in good agreement
between the simulation and the test result. Vijay et al. [9] developed
a model to simulate bird strike events under various conditions,
establishing a comparison between the Lagrangian and SPH finite

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2016.12.017
0734-743X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
90 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101
Fig. 1. Components for a typical tail leading edge.
Fig. 2. Original tail leading edge.
TagedPelement methods in the LS-DYNA simulations. With the cylindrical
bird model, the simulation results showed good correlation to the
experimental data. Hanssen et al. [10] carried out bird strike test on
double sandwich panels. Strain gauges were pasted in the impact
area of the rear surface of the sandwich plate to measure the local
strains of the specimen. They also conducted numerical simulation
using LS-DYNA, where a multi-material ALE formulation was used to
simulate the bird whereas the Lagrangian method was adopted to
model the structure. It was found that the simulated results were in
good agreement with the experimental data.
TagedPMore recently Georgiadis et al. [11] established a simulation meth-
odology to support the bird strike certification of a moveable trailing
edge of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, made of a carbon fiber epoxy com-
posite. In their work, the explicit finite element software PAM-CRASH
was selected for conducting numerical simulations. The bird was mod-
eled with the SPH method, while the joints were represented by differ-
ent advanced fastener elements. Additional works for bird strike
investigating of tail leading edge can be found in references [12
14].
TagedPThis paper presents the work of designing a novel tail leading
edge structure by conducting numerical simulations and bird strike
Fig. 3. Novel tail leading edge.
TagedP xperiments. Section 2 describes the certification requirement for
e
the tail leading edge structure. In Section 3, a novel tail leading edge
design is presented. Finally numerical simulations and bird strike
experiments are conducted to compare the performance of the novel
design with the original design. The software package PAM-CRASH is
adopted to perform the numerical simulations. Section 4 presents
the application of the novel tail leading edge design in a commercial
aircraft. Good agreements between the simulated dynamic response
and damage with the experimental results verify the design method
presented in this work.
2. Bird strike airworthiness requirement for tail leading edge
TagedPCurrent design, construction and certification standards for com-
mercial and military aircrafts were developed over 40 years ago. Both
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and European Aviation Safety
Agency (EASA) list regulations for aircraft certification process to
ensure that the front facing aircraft components are capable of with-
standing bird strike at critical flight speed to a certain degree [1].
 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101 91

Fig. 4. The SPH particle schematic.

TagedPThe bird strike airworthiness requirement relevant to the tail

leading edge is specified under CCAR part 25, sub-part 25.631, which
states that “The Tail Leading structure must be designed to assure
capability of continued safe flight and landing of the aircraft after
impacted with a 3.6 kg bird when the velocity of the aircraft is equal
to cruise velocity at sea level. Where compliance is applied by test,
analysis or both, use of data on aircraft having the similar structural
design is acceptable”. This requires that “The front beam of the tail
leading edge structure should not be damaged after impacted with a
3.6 kg bird when the velocity of the airplane relative to the bird is
equal to the designed cruise velocity at sea level”. The designed
cruise velocity at sea level is 150 m/s for the transport category air-
craft considered in this study. Thus, the design objective is to ensure

Fig. 6. Dynamic compressive stress-strain curves of Al 2024 and Al 7075(a) Al 2024;

(b) Al 7075.

tTagedP hat the front beam of the tail leading edge structure is not damaged
after struck by a 3.6 kg bird with this impact velocity.

3. The design method

3.1. A novel tail leading edge design

TagedPThe tail leading edge under consideration is a representative hor-

izontal tail structure. Fig. 1 shows the structural components of a
typical tail leading edge. With about 1500 mm in length, it consists
of a leading edge skin, an inner skin, two ribs, a front beam and a
back beam. The leading edge skin and the inner skins are made of
2024-T3 aluminum alloy and the ribs and beams are made of 7075-
T6 aluminum alloy. The thickness is 1.62 mm for the Leading Edge
skin and the inner skin, 3.5 mm for the front and back beams, and
2.5 mm for the ribs. The total mass is 29 kg. Fig. 2 shows the typical
tail leading edge Structure assembled from the components shown
in Fig. 1. This structure is referred to as the original desgin.
TagedPFig. 3 shows a novel design, with a triangular reinforcement is
introduced. The 2024-T3 aluminum alloy reinforcement plate, with
thickness 5.5 mm, weighs 7 kg. The thickness of the front and back
beams is reduced from 3.5 mm to 2 mm, to maintain the constant
total mass of the leading edge structure. The vertex of the triangular
reinforcement is in contact with the leading edge skin and the bot-
Fig. 5. The SPH bird model.
tom is mounted to the front beam by rivets.
92 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101
Fig. 7. Numerical model for bird strike on tail leading edge (a) Original tail leading edge; (b) Novel tail leading edge.
3.2. Bird strike simulation
TagedP3.1.1. The bird model
TagedPDuring the high-speed impact process, the bird was observed
to be highly distorted and crushed into pieces, behaving like fluids
[15-18]. This kind of behavior is difficult to simulate using the con-
ventional FE model with Lagrangian mesh owing to the large mesh
distortion which would lead to severe stability problems. The
meshless SPH method, which overcomes this difficulty, is adopted to
simulate the bird in this paper.
TagedPThe SPH method was developed by Lucy in the late 19700 s for
material shattering problems in hypervelocity impacts [19]. In the
SPH formulation the influence of each particle is established inside a
sphere of radius 2 h called the support domain, where h represents
the smoothing length, Fig. 4. The smoothing length of each particle
varies with time. It increases as particles move apart but decreases
when particles come close to each other. It is necessary to keep suffi-
cient number of particles in the neighbor to validate the approxi-
mate of continuum variables.
TagedPThe SPH method uses the Lagrangian formulation for the equa-
tions of motion but instead of a grid, the kernel functions are used to
evaluate the field variables at each particle. The kernel function is
active only over a given volume around each node. Each node has a
given mass and constitutes an element in the sense that the state
variables are evaluated at its location. The method is mesh free
because there is no predefined grid restraining which nodes can
interact together. In practice, the SPH method uses fewer elements
than the ALE method, avoids the material interface problems associ-
ated with it, and results in a shorter solution time. In recent years,
TagedPmany researchers, e.g., Johnson and Holzapfel [20] and McCarthy
et al. [21], have used the SPH method in bird strike simulations.
TagedPIn this study the bird geometry was approximated as a cylinder
with a length to diameter ratio of 2:1. According to the certification
standard required by CCAR25 for transport category aircraft, the mass
of the bird model is chosen to be 3.6 kg. Barber et al. [15] measured
the densities of birds of various sizes and obtained an average value of
about 950 kg/m3. This value has been adopted as the bird density in
many published studies, and it is also adopted in our simulations. The
bird model, including 15,360 SPH units, is shown in Fig. 5.
TagedPAt high speed, it has been shown that the bird can be considered
as a homogeneous fluid jet impacting on the structure. Therefore, it
is adequate to use an equation of state (EOS) to model the bird mate-
rial. The constitutive model of the Murnaghan EOS corresponds to a
liquid with an artificially increased compressibility has been shown
to be effective for a certain class of hydrodynamic simulations,
where the flow velocities remain well below the physical sound
speed and the compressibility effects are of minor importance. The
artificial fluid must be given a speed of sound still well above the
speed of the bulk flow. Therefore, it creates very small density fluc-
tuations. The pressure for the Murnaghan EOS is expressed as
p D p0 C B½ðr=r0 Þg ¡1 ð1Þ
where p0 is a reference pressure, B and g are constants, and r/r0 is
the ratio of the current mass density to the initial mass density.
TagedPThis constitutive model may be used to simulate gravity driven
and inertia driven flows of liquids, i.e., outflow from reservoirs, mix-
ing of fluids with different densities, and sloshing of liquids in par-
tially filled containers. In such phenomena, the bulk flow velocities
 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101
Fig. 8. Simulation results for bird strike on tail leading edge (a) Original tail leading edge; (b) Novel tail leading edge.
TagedPof the liquids can be orders of magnitude smaller than the speed of
sound, and the introduced limitations of the sound speed to, say
10vmax, can greatly reduce the explicit solution time step while pre-
serving the essential quality of the results.
TagedPMcCarthy et al. [21] performed bird strike tests on flat plates to
identify the most suitable material parameters by matching the
responses of a number of pressure sensors using the program
PAM-OPT. The parameter B D 128 MPa and g D 7.98, determined by
McCarthy [21], are used in this study.
TagedP3.1.2. The constitutive model for structural materials
TagedPThe structural components of the tail leading edge are made of
2024-T3 and 7075-T6 aluminum alloys. The elastic-plastic material
with isotropic damage for thin shell element, corresponding to
material model 105 in PAM-CRASH, is adopted to describe these
materials.
TagedPIn material model 105, the plastic response is described by the
strain rate dependent Cowper-Symonds law

h i
s ðɛ; ɛ_ Þ D a C bðɛp Þn 1 C ðɛ_ =DÞp
1
ð2Þ
where a C b(ep)n represents the static yield stress including strain
hardening, a is the yield stress, ep is the effective plastic strain, b and
n are materials constants. The strain rate effect is included by the
factor 1 C ð_ɛ =DÞ1=p , which depends on the strain rate ɛ_ , and the con-
trol parameters D and p.
93
TagedPStatic compression tests and dynamic Split Hopkinson pressure
bar (SHPB) tests at different strain rates are conducted to obtain the
stress-strain curves for these aluminum alloys. Fig. 6 shows that
these materials can be considered as strain rate insensitive. The
material parameters are obtained by curve-fitting of the test data.
The resuls are a D 350 MPa, b D 426 MPa and n D 0.34 for 2024-T3,
while a D 400 MPa, b D 200 MPa and n D 0.45 for 7075-T6. Some
curves show a drop of stress after yielding, which may be caused by
the inaccuracy in stress and strain measurements.
TagedPThere are generally two possible modes of failure in the leading
edge skin under bird impact [22]. Most of the material failure in the
leading edge skin is due to tensile stretching caused by the displace-
ment of the impact region towards the inner side of the leading
edge. Only a very small part of the leading edge skin may experience
crushed failure at the initial moment of impact. Neglecting the mode
of crushed failure will not significantly affect the failure prediction
of the whole structure. Therefore it is reasonable to define a critical
strain value in tension to model material failure. Once the equivalent
tensile strain in an element reaches the critical failure strain of the
material, the element will be deleted. The critical failure strain is
obtained by conducting uniaxial tensile tests and it is found to be 0.2
for 2024-T3 and 0.14 for 7075-T6.
TagedP3.1.3. Models for joints
TagedPFastening joints, such as rivet and bolt, are represented by the
PLINK elements in PAM-CRASH. The rivets used in the structure in
94 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101
Fig. 9. Arrangement of the test equipment.
Fig. 10. The gas gun to launch bird.
Fig. 11. Production of bird projectile.
TagedPthis study are countersink rivets made from aluminium alloy with a
nominal diameter 6.5 mm. To ensure stable response, the penalty
stiffness of the joint is internally calculated [4]. The rupture model of
the PLINK element is expressed as follows
 n  m
N T
C f ð3Þ
N max T max
where the normal force (N) and shear force (T) are calculated in the
simulation process. The maximum normal force (Nmax) and shear
force (Tmax) as well as n, m and f are user input parameters. Since
there is no strength data available for the particular type of rivet, a
range of rivet rupture parameters in literatures were examined. It is
found that the rupture parameters (Nmax D 5100 N, Tmax D 3200 N,
n D 1.5, m D 2.1 and f D 1, in literature [21]) can be used to simulated
the rivet fracture adequately.
TagedP3.1.4. The computational model
TagedPThe bird is represented by the SPH model while the structure is
modeled with the traditional Lagrange element. The accuracy of the
algorithms to model the contact between the SPH particles and the
FE mesh is especially important in fluid structure interaction prob-
lems such as bird strike. Presently there are two main approaches
for treatment of the contact between the SPH particles and the FE
mesh: (a) particle-to-node and (b) particle-to-surface [23]. The FE
mesh and SPH particle coupling is achieved by the use of penalty
contacts, with slave nodes of SPH particles [24]. The interaction of
the SPH particles with the FE mesh can be modeled by the existing
sliding interface algorithms available within PAM-CRASHÒ , where
the material is considered as sliding or tied interface when the par-
ticles are assumed to stick to the FE surface. For particles interacting
with finite elements, the contact thickness should be representative
of the particle radius, possibly augmented with the half-thickness of
the shell structure. So the node to surface contact was used to model
the interaction between the SPH particles and the Lagrange ele-
ments.
TagedPThe contact algorithms are usually designed for modeling
between the surfaces of two adjacent shells and not the edge of a
shell and the surface of another shell. In this study the contact
between the sharp edge of the triangular reinforcing component and
the inner skin is modeled using the “Self-impacting-node-to-
 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101
Fig. 12. Tail leading edge structure in position on test rig at laboratory (a) Original tail leading edge; (b) Novel tail leading edge.
TagedPsegment” contact type built-in in PAM-CRASH. In the simulations,
the node of the sharp edge is selected to contact with the element
segments belonging to the inner skin.
TagedPFig. 7 shows the finite element models of the original and novel
design. Different structural components are joined together via
PLINK elements. The impact location is at the middle of the Leading
Edge. The two designs are meshed as shell elements, with average
element size of 10 mm. The total elements numbers of original and
novel design are 19,992 and 24,276, respectively. Convergence stud-
ies suggest that the meshes adopted here have sufficient refinement
to provide converged solutions.
TagedP3.1.5. Simulation results
TagedPFig. 8 compares the simulated deformation process of the original
and the novel tail leading edge designs over a 4 ms period. At t D 0
ms, the bird starts to contact the tail leading edge. As t increases, the
leading edge deforms and the SPH bird breaks into debris flowing on
the contact surface. For the original design, the leading edge suffers
severe deformation as evidenced by the deep dent on the surface. As
a result, debris of the bird is trapped in the deformed area and most
of the impact energy has to be consumed by the leading edge. How-
ever, for the novel design, the bird is cut into two parts and the
debris slides away from the impact location, thus the impact energy
is diverted away. Consequently little deformation is experienced by
the leading edge. Although the two tail leading edge Structures have
the same mass, the anti-bird strike performance of the novel design
is better than the original one.
95
3.2. Experimental validation
TagedP3.2.1. The test method
TagedPThe bird strike experiments were performed at Jiangsu Anchor
Co. Ltd. Fig. 9 illustrates the arrangement of the test equipment. The
gas gun system consists of a compressed air gun with the supporting
compressor, instrumentation, and control systems. The compressor
pumps air into the storage tank. A valve located between the driving
air storage tank and the breech of the gun is designed to drive the
high pressure air from the storage tank into the gun. After the
desired air pressure is reached in the pressure chamber, the pressure
release valve will open and the gas will expand in the barrel to push
the projectile forward. The bird launcher includes the projectile and
the sabot with a required mass and must accelerate to a desired
velocity. Before impacting on the target, the bird launcher cannot
induce any projectile breakup or severe distortion. In the meantime,
the projectile must be launched at the desired orientation.
TagedPFig. 10 shows the gas gun used in the bird strike tests. The bird is
held inside a sabot packed with expanded polystyrene. The sabot
has to be as light as possible since it constitutes an unwanted mass,
and it must be able to separate easily from the projectile just prior to
impact. The tolerance between the sabot and tube is important to
ensure the bird projectile going through the barrel without any fric-
tion to slow it down. A sabot stopper shown in Fig. 10 is made of a
steel tube. It traps the sabot when the sabot and the projectile reach
the end of the barrel. The stopper is designed to allow the projectile
to continue its flight without losing its velocity. To prepare the
96 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101

Fig. 13. Comparison of deformation and damage on tail leading edge between simulation and test (a) Original tail leading edge; (b) Novel tail leading edge.

TagedPimpactor, fowls weighing more than 3.6 kg are killed just before the
test. Some meat and bone in the legs are removed in order to ensure
the mass of the projectile being 3.6 kg. In keeping with current stan-
dard practice for bird strike modeling, the bird was packeted using
plastic membrane into a right circular cylinder. The packet bird was
placed into the seat for launching as shown in Fig. 11.
TagedPFig. 12 shows the target, the original and the novel tail leading
edge structure. The target is fixed on the edges to a clamping fixture
by bolts. The clamping fixture is mounted to a vertical rigid wall by
bolts and the vertical rigid wall is attached to the ground.
TagedP3.2.2. Comparison between simulation and test results
TagedPA comparison between test and the numerically predicted
impact results for the original tail leading edge structure is pre-
sented in Fig. 13(a). In this case, there is extensive deformation
and damage in the skin, while most of the bird debris is trapped
in the deformed area. In Fig. 13(b), the test results of the novel
structure showed that there is only a little deformation on the
structure. For both the original structure and the novel design,
good agreement between the simulation and test results are
observed, indicating that the numerical simulation method used
 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101 97

Fig. 15. Finite element model of the novel tail leading edge and location of impacted
point.

Fig. 14. The novel tail leading edge (a) Geometrical details of the novel tail leading
edge, (b) the radius of curvature for the two structures.

Fig. 16. Test target of the novel tail leading edge specimen.

TagedPis reasonable. Furthermore, both simulation and test results sug- TagedP he triangle plate is fastened to the ribs by connecting angle plate
T
gest that the performance of the novel tail leading edge design is and serves as the reinforcement component as explained in the pre-
superior to the original design. vious section. The triangle plate has a uniform thickness of 2.54 mm.

4. Design of a horizontal tail for a commercial aircraft Table 1

Experimental record of bird striking.

4.1. The novel tail leading edge structure Test number Bird mass/kg Expected impact Actual impact
velocity ms¡1 velocity ms¡1
TagedPFig. 14 shows the designed tail leading edge for a commercial air-
1# 3.601 155 m/s 155 m/s
craft. This novel design includes six parts: skin, triangle plate, 2# 3.598 155 m/s 156 m/s
connector, ribs, frontal beam and cabin structure. The skin was
chemically milled to different thickness and is riveted to the ribs.
98 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101
Fig. 17. Instrumentation of the structure by strain gauges (a) Measured location of 1# specimen test; (b) Measured location of 2# specimen test.
TagedPProper modeling of the actual curvature of the triangle plate tip is
important in designing the triangular plate. Two kind of structures
are considered in this work. The triangle plate in the first structure
(1#) was machined, which means that the radius of curvature of tri-
angle plate tip is zero. The triangle plate in the second structure (2#)
was bent and has a curvature of 3 mm. Simulation results show that
the impacting bird can be easily cut into two parts when the curva-
ture of the triangular plate tip is less than 5 mm.
4.2. Simulation and test results
TagedP4.2.1. The numerical model and the test setup
TagedPThe novel tail leading edge is meshed by shell elements and the
bird is simulated by the SPH model. Fig. 15 shows the finite element
model of the tail leading edge structure. Various components are
joined together by rivets. In the finite element model the tied con-
nection is used to simulate the rivet joint. The bird is defined as the
slave part while the leading edge structure is defined as the master
part when they contact with each other. During the impact process,
the component firstly deform (may suffer damage) by the bird strike,
and then impact the subsequent components. Therefore, the skins,
the triangle palte as well as the ribs may come into collision with
each other during the bird strike process. In order to simulate the
interaction among these components, the contact type “Self-impact-
ing-node-to-segment” is defined. This built-in contact type of PAM-
CRASH is used to model the interaction between different compo-
nents as well as different portions of the same component after it is
severely deformed.
TagedPFor each structure, the centre point of the leading edge is selected
as the impact loaction. The impact velocity is set to be 155 m/s. The
end part of the skin and triangle plate are fixed as the boundary con-
dition.
TagedPFig. 16 shows the tail leading edge structure used for bird strike
testing. The structure is fixed to a heavy support attached to the
ground. Two tests are conducted. Table 1 lists the mass of the bird
projectle and the impact velocity of the experiments.
TagedPThe dynamic responses of test 1# and test 2# are recorded by
strain gauges as shown in Fig. 17. Six strain gauges were arranged
for test 1#, S4 and S6 on the same location as S3 and S5 were
arranged on the other side of the skin, as shown in Fig. 17(a). Five
strain gauges were arranged for test 2#, see in Fig. 17(b).
TagedPThe final deformation and damage of the tail leading edge is
shown in Fig. 20. No penetration occurred on the frontal beam sug-
gesting that the novel design meet the requirement of CCAR part 25.
As illustrated in the previous section, the triangle reinforcement
component plays an important role in enhancing the anti-bird strike
performance.
TagedP4.2.2. Comparison between simulation and test results
TagedPFigs. 18 and 19 compare the surface strains from the numerical
simulations with the strains measured by the strain gauges for test
1# and test 2# respectively. Although there are some discrepancies
between the experimental and simulated strain-time responses, the
simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental
records, with the almost same peak values and the trend of the
curves.
TagedPFig. 20 compares the final deformation and damage of the leading
edge between experiment and simulation. For specimen 1#, the final
damage size generated from simulation and experimental measure-
ment is 514 mm and 572 mm, respectively. For specimen 2#, he final
damage size from the two mentioned approaches is 404 mm and
432 mm, respectively. Again, the results obtained through the two
approaches match well with each other.
TagedPThe good agreement between the simulation and test results
indicate that the coupled SPH-FE method provides a valid and
 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101 99

Fig. 18. Comparison between simulated and measured strains on structure of test 1#.

TagedPeffective means to predict the deformation and damage behavior of 5. Conclusions

aircraft structures subjected to bird strike. This numerical method
can be used to design anti-bird strike structures. Both experimental
and simulation results reveal no penetration on the frontal beam,
which validates the novel design containing a triangular reinforce-
ment component.
TagedPEven though the simulation results and experimental data show
reasonably good agreements, there are a few differences in both
Fig. 13 and Fig. 20 for the final configurations of the leading edge
outer surface. These differences may be caused by the inaccuracy in
modeling contacts among various parts and the overly simple failure
criterion adopted to model material failure.
TagedPThis paper presents the work performed to design a novel tail
leading edge structure by employing the finite element method cou-
pled with the SPH method to simulate the bird strike process. The
bird is simulated by the SPH model while the structure is modeled
with the traditional Lagrange elements. Material constants and
model parameters are obtained by conducting mechanical testing as
well as from published literature. Bird strike experiments are con-
ducted to validate the numerical model. Some conclusions can be
drawn from the results of this study:
100 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101

Fig. 19. Comparison between simulated and measured strains on structure of test 2#.

TagedP TagedP(1)
Good agreements between the simulated and measured
dynamic response and damage of the tail leading edge verify the
design method presented in this work. More importantly, it
shows that the coupled SPH-FE method provides a valid and
effective means to predict the deformation and damage behav-
ior of aircraft structures subjected to bird strike. Thus, it can be
used as a tool to design bird strike-resistant structures.
(TagedP 2) A triangular reinforcement component is introduced to enhance
the anti-bird strike performance of the tail leading edge. Both
simulation and experimental results show that the reinforce-
ment component reduces the deformation and damage of tail
leading edge suffered by bird strike by diverting the impact
energy from the area impact area.
TagedP(3) Bird strike simulations and experiments are conducted for the
tail leading edge of a commercial aircraft adopting the proposed
novel design. No penetration on the frontal beam is observed
after impacted by bird, suggesting that the novel design meet
the certification requirement of CCAR part 25.
Acknowledgement
TagedPThe authors wish to acknowledge the kind support of National
Nature Scientific Foundation (11472225) and the Basic Research
Foundation of Northwestern Polytechnical University (No.
3102015BJ(II)CG008).
 J. Liu et al. / International Journal of Impact Engineering 105 (2017) 89
101
Fig. 20. Comparison of damage on tail leading edge between simulation and test for 1# and 2#.
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