Optimisation of rotorcraft fuel tank for crashworthiness based on a neural network

ABSTRACT

Crashworthy fuel tank has been widely implemented among rotorcraft, and they have served a valuable contribution to improving the survivability of crews and passengers. From the early stages of military rotorcraft history, the US Army has developed and implemented a detailed military specification documenting the unique crashworthiness requirements for rotorcraft fuel tank with the aim of reducing the high incidence of fatalities due to post-crash fires. International manufacturers have followed this information to develop their own fuel tank, and have reflected the results of crash impact tests in trial-and-error design and manufacturing processes. Since the crash impact test itself requires lengthy preparation together with costly fuel cell specimens, a series of numerical simulations of the crash impact test with digital mock-ups is necessary, even at the early design stage, in order to minimise trial-and-error testing with full-scale fuel tank. In this study, a number of numerical simulations on fuel cell crash impact tests are performed with the crash simulation software, ANSYS/Autodyn. The resulting equivalent stresses are further analysed to evaluate a number of appropriate design parameters and the artificial neural network and simulated annealing method are simultaneously implemented to optimise the crashworthy performance of fuel tank.

KEYWORDS:

• Fuel tank
• crashworthiness
• crash impact test
• US military specification
• artificial neural network
• simulated annealing

Acknowledgments

The presented study is the part of ‘Development of virtual test technology for aircraft crashworthiness’, supported by Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science and Technology (KRCF).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science and Technology (KRCF).