Birdstrike onto the Composite Intake of a Turbofan Engine

Birdstrike is a menace for flight safety likely to have tragic consequences. In view of that, the efforts provided to design high-efficiency bird-proof structures are fully justified. In this work the impact of a standard 4-lb bird onto a nacelle made of composite material required for the certification of the component has been investigated using LS-Dyna 970. Initially, the dynamic behaviour of the composite material used in the manufacturing of the external skin panels of the intake was achieved by referring to specific experimental tests. It was observed, in fact, that the dynamic behaviour of the composite material has a deep influence on the failure mechanism of the structure. Subsequently, the numerical model worked out for the composite material was used to numerically reproduce a bird impact certification test. A SPH model of the bird validated in previous research was used. A good numerical-experimental correlation between experimental data and numerical results was obtained.