SPH – Lagrangian study of bird impact on leading edge wing

Experimental bird-strike tests were conducted using a dead chicken of 8lb with a speed of 250kts that hit on leading edge bay in composite material made with aluminium alloy 2024-T3, core panel of honeycomb and GLARE cover plates. A validated simulation methodology has been developed in order to use a reference in further bird test certification procedure on the fin of the C27-J aircraft. Results from the experimental tests are given so that they can be used to validate numerical models and promote the use of the numerical tools in aircraft design and certification process. The explicit finite element software LS–Dyna and MSC–Dytran were selected to perform the simulations using two different approaches: Lagrangian and smooth particle hydrodynamics techniques and a comparison was performed to define the differences between two approaches. This paper demonstrates the accuracy of the methods for bird impact on a rigid target and subsequently it produced the state of the art of the bird-strike simulation. Impact, failure after the impact, and high strength at impact properties of glass fibre laminate combination sandwich composite were investigated in this study.