APPLICATIONS OF LS-DYNA TO STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS RELATED TO RECOVERY SYSTEMS AND OTHER FABRIC STRUCTURES

Irvin Aerospace Inc., has used the LS-DYNA Explicit Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tool for over five years for the analysis of static and dynamic fabric problems. The References provide many examples of this previous work. Our first application was the analysis of airbag landings for several spacecraft programs, including Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV’s), various Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV’s), Military Airdrop Systems, and planetary exploration systems. These are all covered in the references. This paper presents some current results along the lines of the above, and other recent developments. These include an air beam supported structure, which was evaluated for both snow and wind loads, and a fabric blanket system that was somewhat optimized by a combination of FEA analysis and testing. While these applications appear rather bland, the air beam structure is designed to house military fighter and rotary aircraft and must withstand significant snow and wind loads. The blanket system is used to constrain a target-missile that performs a unique ‘Air Launch’ mission, involving extracting the target from a cargo aircraft and allowing it to stabilize prior to release and ignition.