Influence of bird yaw/pitch orientation on bird-strike resistance of aircraft structures

There have been numerous bird-strike accidents in which substantial damage to the airframe occurred even though the striking force involved did not reach the energy standard currently required, showing that only taking mass and velocity into account in bird-strike prevention cannot guarantee airframe safety. In order to find out the effect of the bird yaw/pitch orientation on the safety of different aircraft structures, the dynamic responses on the panel, the radome, and the plane wing's leading edge were investigated. The results show that the bird-strike resistance of the structure is significantly affected by the bird's yaw/pitch orientation, and different structural characteristics lead to different dynamic responses. The greater the attitude angle, the more energy absorbed for the energy-absorbing structure, and accordingly the safer the protected structure; for the load-bearing structure, the greater the attitude and the larger the high stress area on the structure, the more vulnerable the structure. Therefore, in the evaluation of aircraft structures' bird-strike resistance capability, apart from doing the bird-strike experiment, it is also necessary to investigate different responses of various bird yaw/pitch orientations to the hazardous parts of aircraft structures through numerical simulation.