Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Title

Dynamic Response of Bird Strike on Aluminum Foam-Based Sandwich Panels

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Abstract

This study attempts to establish an experimental–numerical framework to simulate the dynamic response of aluminium foam-based sandwich panels subjected to bird strike. The numerical model is developed with the non-linear dynamic finite element code PAM-CRASH, where the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) algorithm is used to model the bird, an elastic–plastic material model with isotropic damage is used to describe aluminium skin and the Deshpande–Fleck foam model is used to describe the foam core. Mechanical tests of the skin and foam materials as well as bird-strike tests of a double sandwich panel are conducted and the experimental results are used to calibrate the model parameters. The bird-strike simulation results show reasonably good agreement with test data, indicating the simulation method is capable of predicting the dynamic response of aluminium foam-based sandwich panels in the event of bird strike. Finally a series of parametric studies are conducted to examine the effects of foam thickness and arrangement on the deformation behaviour and energy-absorbing ability of the sandwich panels to illustrate the potential application of the numerical model in the design of aluminium foam-based sandwich structures.

Publication Title

International Journal of Crashworthiness

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