28th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 23 - 28 September 2012, Brisbane, Australia
Paper ICAS 2012-8.1.2


IMPROVED DESIGN METHODS FOR CRASHWORTHY COMPOSITE HELICOPTER STRUCTURES

M. W. Joosten, M. David*, C. Kindervater*, R. Thomson**
CRC-ACS & UNSW, Australia; *DLR, Germany; **CRC-ACS, Australia

Keywords: composite helicopter structures, finite element method, crashworthy

Improved design methods to predict the crash response of composite helicopter structures have been developed using the explicit finite element software PAM-CRASH. Validation, performed using a test article representative of a helicopter frame section, demonstrated that the dynamic crushing response, strain and energy absorption could be accurately predicted.


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