Dynamic response of the leading edge wing under soft body impact

Soft body impact tests were conducted using an artificial bird of 0.2 kg with a striking velocity of 150 m•s ^-1 on three different configurations of metallic wing leading edge (LE) structures. The objective of these experiments is to address the preliminary design of LE wing structures to soft body impact loads. The explicit finite element software PAM-CRASH was selected to simulate these experiments using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) techniques for modelling the bird. The impact tests were also performed for a velocity of 70-180 m•s ^-1 on instrumented aluminium and steel flat plates to attain the bird material parameters. The artificial bird material parameters for a hydrodynamic material model (Murnaghan equation of state) and elastic-plastic solids with damage and failure were optimised using iSIGHT and PAM-CRASH coupling technique in conjunction with tests on flat plates. The experimental and numerical correlations of the flat plates suggested that at high velocity the hydrodynamic material model gives good results. Bird-strike simulations on wing LE structures were performed using optimised artificial bird parameters. The load transferred to the support structure and post-test deflection-simulated results showed good conformity with the experiment. The SPH method proved to be very effective for modelling a bird strike on flat plates and LE structures. The deformation behaviour of the SPH bird appears to be in excellent agreement with the video stills, with the flow around the structure and break-up into particles.