Bird Strike Simulation on a Wing Slat using Abaqus/Explicit

Bird strikes cost the United States aviation industry tens of millions of dollars annually in aircraft damage and schedule delays. Increasing the ability of the aircraft to resist bird strike induced damage is one part of an overall approach to mitigating this expense [1]. Experimental bird strike testing is part of the certification process for certain aircraft component designs. If a subset of the tests can be replaced with computational simula-tion, the cost of the prototype testing can be reduced. Fur-ther, bird strike resistance considerations can be included in the design process, thus increasing the probability that certification tests will be successful. In this Technology Brief we describe how Abaqus/Explicit has been used to assess the bird impact performance of a wing slat.