Aeroelasticity and Structural Dynamics
Methods and Simulation Codes for Inelastic Analysis, Damage, Failure and Crash
Modeling of Fluid/Structure Couplings in the Field of Structural Strength: From the Impact of Birds to Alighting at Sea
Behavior of structures at crash or impact is a relatively recent theme of study for aeronautics, and is constantly changing. The usual tools of structural analysis in a Lagrangian formulation are well suited to purely solid problems today. Other formulations and other behavior laws better suited to coupled “fluid/structure” problems, namely Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) and Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), have been developed to remedy certain deficiencies in the more “classical” methods. Today, there are integrated tools for dealing with sea landing, bird impacts and fluid hammer problems in aircraft tanks. The environment here is a flexible or fluid medium, highly deformable compared with the structure, and the topology of which may not remain “nice” during the simulation. By replacing the Lagrangian finite element mesh with a Eulerian mesh or even a discrete set of separate particles we can avoid the appearance of numerical instabilities and study the evolution of the physical phenomena over much longer durations than with the usual tools.
Impact of "bird" on a canopy
Sea landing of a commercial aircraft
References
[1] B. Langrand, A-S. Bayart, Y. Chauveau, E. Deletombe, Assessment of multi-physics FE methods for bird impact modelling – Application to a metallic riveted airframe , Int. Journal of Crashworthiness 7(4) (2002) 415-428.
[2] G. Portemont, E. Deletombe, P. Drazétic, Assessment of basic experimental impact simulations for coupled fluid/structure interactions modelling , International Journal of Crashworthiness, Vol.9 N°4 pp333-339, August 2004
[3] R. Ortiz, J.-F. Sobry, J.-L. Charles, Structural loading of a complete aircraft under realistic crash conditions: generation of a load database for passenger safety and innovative design, 24th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS 2004) -Yokohama-JAPON (Aug-2004)
