FE analysis of geometry effects of an artificial bird striking an aeroengine fan blade

Bird strike resistance of aeroengines is a strict certification requirement. Apart from costly experimental bird strike tests, explicit numerical modeling techniques have been employed. However, due to the complicated bird geometry, artificial bird models are still not well defined and it is a perennial problem selecting an appropriate representative artificial bird geometry for the simulations. To examine the relative effects of the artificial bird geometry, explicit 3-D finite element analyses are conducted herein using the commercial code LS-DYNA. As a validation test, we first studied the nonlinear transient dynamic response of an artificial bird striking a rigid flat target. Following the validation, we studied the impact behavior of an artificial bird impinging a flexible aeroengine fan blade. The study focused on the three most-frequently used configurations in the literature: namely, hemispherical-ended cylinder, straight-ended cylinder, and ellipsoid, at various length-to-diameter aspect ratios. The results show that the initial contact area between the bird and target in the early phase of the impact event would have a significant effect on the peak impact force. The aspect ratio of the bird striking both rigid panel and flexible fan blade was found to have little influence on the normalized impact force and impulse.