Bird-Strike Analysis on Hybrid Composite Fan Blade: Blade-Level Validation

Abstract

Bird strikes have long been a source of concern for all airlines across the world. It is the most significant design criterion for aircraft engine fan blades. As it is not practical to manufacture and test aviation engines repeatedly for minor design modifications, simulation analysis can be used to investigate strategies to reduce the influence of a bird strike on a jet engine by employing proper design and manufacturing processes for blades. This study proposes using two fibers (hybrid) instead of the single-fiber composite blade presently in use to address delamination problems. As an idea validation test, the coupon-level analysis results are validated using a four-point bend test of similar-size coupons. Following this validation, dynamic analysis is used to investigate the impact behavior of a rectangular plate subjected to a bird strike. The current research focuses on analyzing bird strikes on a hybrid composite fan blade using blade-level models. This study concentrates on the position of the bird’s impact and the joint region length of two materials. The results show that the joint region with a 40% length of glass composite shows the optimum level of normalized interlaminar shear strain in all three impact locations.