A Numerical Investigation of a Bird Strike on the Structure of an Aircraft Wing Leading Edge

Abstract

The bird strike incidents have been a problem since the start of modern aviation. It remains one of the most dangerous threat to the flight safety. Although catastrophic failure is uncommon, flight safety authorities require aircrafts to be designed to complete the flight without any harm. In addition to experimental investigation of bird strikes, finite element modeling is adopted in numerous researches on bird strike. A finite element model based on smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is developed to analyze the bird strike effect on a leading edge of an aircraft wing. Since birds strike at the leading edge of the wings from different orientation, bird strike simulations are performed from various orientations. Results presented in the current work that the advancing angle of birds toward the leading edge has a minor effect on the deformation of the leading edge of an aircraft wing.  The deformation behavior of the wing leading edge after bird strike is discussed in detail by presenting the results in figures. Simulations illustrated that the advancing angle of a real bird causes substantial structural deformations on wing profiles.