Comparative Studies of Bird Strike by Dummy Tests and Simulations

Kurzfassung

Bird strike analysis is a necessity in aircraft’s and rotorcraft’s safety certification. Artificial birds are a means to repetitively test a structure’s behaviour under this impulse transfer. However, artificial or dummy birds as a surrogate are questioned if their threat is representative in comparison with real birds. The sourcing of real birds instead requires high effort and drawbacks in terms of repeatability and ethic aspects. The background of artificial bird approaches is sketched and two approaches are characterised. The regular shaped reinforced artificial bird by DLR German Aerospace Center (DLRRAB) is compared with the biofidelic and ornithomorphic test device (OTD) by Crashtest Service (CTS) in terms of launchability, the load profile during normal impact and the breakup pattern. The applied velocities are typical for aeronautical safety testing. The conference presentation covers the first test results of biofidelic artificial birds compared with the DLRRAB and real birds under identical loading and boundary conditions. The influences on the bird dummy behaviour during testing are discussed.