Abstract
The crashworthiness of helicopter fuel tank is vital to the survivability of the passengers and structures. In order to understand and improve the crashworthiness of the soft fuel tank of helicopter during the crash, this paper investigated the dynamic behavior of the nylon woven fabric composite fuel tank striking on the ground. A fluid–structure interaction finite element model of the fuel tank based on the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method was constructed to elucidate the dynamic failure behavior. The drop impact tests were conducted to validate the accuracy of the numerical simulation. Good agreement was achieved between the experimental and numerical results of the impact force with the ground. The influences of the impact velocity, the impact angle, the thickness of the fuel tank wall and the volume fraction of water on the dynamic responses of the dropped fuel tank were studied. The results indicated that the corner of the fuel tank is the most vulnerable location during the impact with ground.
Highlights
Nowadays, helicopters are widely used in military and civil fields owing to its unique vertical take-off and landing properties, excellent hover performance and low-speed characteristics
Li et al (2007) simulated the dynamic behaviors of dual layer fuel tank during the impact with the ground based on parallel computing, and the results indicated that, comparing with the recursive coordinate bisection (RCB) algorithm, their algorithm could run with high speed up ratio and parallel efficiency
Numerical simulations FE model The three-dimensional FE model of the fuel tank is established according to the drop impact test and the model is composed of four parts: the soft fuel tank, the accessory panel, the ground, the fluid phase including the water inside the fuel tank and the air
Summary
Helicopters are widely used in military and civil fields owing to its unique vertical take-off and landing properties, excellent hover performance and low-speed characteristics. Section “Experiment and numerical simulation” describes the physical drop impact test of helicopter fuel tank from a certain height and the corresponding numerical model for the FSI problem. Numerical simulations FE model The three-dimensional FE model of the fuel tank is established according to the drop impact test and the model is composed of four parts: the soft fuel tank, the accessory panel, the ground, the fluid phase including the water inside the fuel tank and the air. Since the air resistance is ignored, the initial velocity of the tank is 17.3 m/s and the acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s2 along the vertical direction It is shown from the photographs of the high-speed camera that the tank impinged on the ground with an angle less than 10°, so the tank in the FEM model is rotated about 5° before falling in order to simulate the actual case. The multimaterial group is used for the problem when it’s a mixture of water and air inside the fuel tank
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