Impact Forces from Artificial and Real Birds on a Large Diameter Hopkinson Bar

Kurzfassung

Forces were measured from normal impacts with two different artificial bird recipes and two species of real birds on a very rigid flat surface. The tests were conducted by launching the soft body projectiles axially into a Hopkinson bar in accordance with the SAE AS6940 test standard at three different nominal impact conditions: (a) a 1 kg projectile at an impact velocity of 49 m/s; (b) a 1.8 kg projectile at an impact velocity of 110 m/s; and (c) a 1.8 kg projectile at an impact velocity of 310 m/s. At each condition two artificial birds and one real bird projectile were tested with at least three test repetitions. Simulations were conducted to assess the effects of projectile orientation and shape on the predicted forces. The Hopkinson bar consisted of an Aluminum 6061 solid cylindrical bar with a diameter of 304.8 mm and a length of 7310 mm, made up of two 3657.6 mm long sections that were in axial contact with each other. The bar was instrumented for strain measurement at two locations, 457.2 mm and 609.6 mm (1.5 and 2 diameters) from the impacted face. Forces were calculated from the measured strain. In addition, digital image correlation (DIC) was used to measure the velocity of the free end of the bar. The real bird projectiles were 1 kg Mallard ducks and 1.8 kg Golden Comet chickens that were prepared per ASTM F330-21. Two artificial bird formulations were tested, one produced by the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and the other by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, identified as DLRRAB. The projectiles were designed such that the overall average density was the desired value of 0.95 g/cc. In this paper, impact forces for three types of projectiles at three impact velocities will be presented with an emphasis on the test-to-test repeatability of the results. Based on test and simulation results a proposed method for normalizing the impact force to minimize effects of differences in projectile orientation, impact velocity and density will also be discussed.