Impact damage modelling of composite aerospace structures subject to bird-strike

One of the key aerospace design and manufacturing criteria that needs to be effectively foreseen and withstood is medium velocity impact conditions enforced by foreign object impacts, mainly bird-strike events. Since experimental impact testing is very costly, efforts have been made to numerically model such events with sufficient accuracy to represent real case scenarios and, consequently, to significantly reduce the minimum number of tests required for product approval processes. So far, very few numerical methodologies have been developed to describe the intricacies of the fluid-solid interactions as seen in bird collisions onto advanced composite structures with either through-the-thickness fracture or delamination being accounted for. This study aims at integrating the capabilities offered by a fluid-structure analysis methodology, Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics, with a cohesive composite fracture and delamination model in order to enable the determination of intricate inter-laminar structural damage as occurred in advanced aerospace composite sub-assemblies and structuresOne of the key aerospace design and manufacturing criteria that needs to be effectively foreseen and withstood is medium velocity impact conditions enforced by foreign object impacts, mainly bird-strike events. Since experimental impact testing is very costly, efforts have been made to numerically model such events with sufficient accuracy to represent real case scenarios and, consequently, to significantly reduce the minimum number of tests required for product approval processes. So far, very few numerical methodologies have been developed to describe the intricacies of the fluid-solid interactions as seen in bird collisions onto advanced composite structures with either through-the-thickness fracture or delamination being accounted for. This study aims at integrating the capabilities offered by a fluid-structure analysis methodology, Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics, with a cohesive composite fracture and delamination model in order to enable the determination of intricate inter-laminar structural damage as occurred in advanced aerospace composite sub-assemblies and structures.