UC San Diego

The largest source of damage to commercial aircraft is caused by accidental contact with ground service equipment (GSE). The cylindrical bumper typically found on GSE distributes the impact load over a large contact area, possibly spanning multiple internal structural elements (frame bays) of a stiffened-skin fuselage. This type of impact can lead to damage that is widespread and difficult to detect visually. To address this problem, monolithic composite panels of various size and complexity have been modeled and tested quasi-statically and dynamically. The experimental observations have established that detectability is dependent on the impact location and immediately-adjacent internal structure of the panel, as well as the impactor geometry and total deformation of the panel. A methodology to model and predict damage caused by wide area blunt impact events was established, which was then applied to more general cases that were not tested in order to better understand the nature of this type of impact event and how it relates to the final damage state and visual detectability