The crashworthiness of civil aircraft using different quadrangular tubes as cabin-floor struts

Abstract

Quadrangular tubes were used as a cabin floor's struts considering their excellent impact response performance to adequately utilise the energy absorbing ability of struts. The finite element model of civil aircraft under sound simplification was built to simulate its drop test. Several fuselage sections with different thicknesses and strut triggers were considered here. The acceleration history, failure behaviour and energy absorption ability of the civil aircraft were investigated. The result shows that the impact response of civil aircraft with different struts could be divided into two groups in these cases. The cabin floor collides with the hold floor for the first group, and there is a collision between the strut and the ground for the second one. The initial maximal peak acceleration increases with an increase in strut's thickness, and the triangular and quadrangular triggers are not recommended in these cases. When strut's thickness is 0.9 mm, the civil aircraft has the best impact performance, and it would get worse with increase or decrease in strut's thicknesses.

Keywords:

• civil aircraft
• crashworthiness
• strut
• acceleration
• failure behaviour
• energy absorption
• quadrangular tube