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 mostdangerous threat to the flight safety. Although catastrophic failure is uncommon, flight safety authorities requireaircrafts to be designed to complete the flight without any harm. A finite element model based on smoothparticle hydrodynamics (SPH) is developed to analyze the bird strike effect on a leading edge of an aircraftwing. Since birds strike at the leading edge of the wings from different orientation, bird strike simulations areperformed from various orientations. results illustrated that the advancing angle of birds toward the leadingedge has a significant effect on the deformation of the leading edge of an aircraft wing. In addition, kineticenergy and von Mises stress at the leading edge of the wings are discussed. Simulations illustrated that theadvancing angle of a real bird causes substantial structural deformations on wing profiles.