Mathew Joosten

Design and testing of crashworthy aerospace composite components

The chapter presents the current state of the art in design, analysis and test of crashworthy composite aircraft structures. It describes a methodology based on the test/simulation pyramid adopted for aircraft structures in which test and analysis methods for crashworthy structures are developed and validated on structural elements and aircraft subfloor structures. Special attention is given to design, manufacture and crash test of a helicopter frame concept structure in advanced composite materials having high specific energy absorption where design rules are still under development.

Coupled SPH-Composite Cohesive Damage Modeling Methodology for Analysis of Solid-Fluid Interaction

In this paper, a methodology for coupling a solid-fluid interactive system, representative of a bird impact, with a composite cohesive damage approach, capable of determining the interlaminar degradation or failure in aerospace composite structures, is presented. The Smooth Particle Hydrodynamic approach, due to its enhanced numerical stability and analysis efficiency, was used to capture the highly complex and non-linear behavior of the bird on impact. Several types of representative primary and secondary advanced aerospace composite structures were subjected to bird-strike at various impact velocities and incidences. The intricacy of the composite damage was successfully simulated by the coupled cohesive model that enabled the determination of delaminated areas as well as the fiber, matrix and total structural damage. This methodology is proposed to facilitate the processes of design and certification for future full, or partial, composite aerospace structures.