Bird strike analysis on a typical helicopter windshield with different lay-ups

Abstract

In the current paper, bird strike to a typical helicopter windshield is investigated using smoothed particles hydrodynamic (SPH) finite element method. Five types of lay-ups in a windshield (single layer stretch acrylic, single layer glass, two-wall cast acrylic, acrylic with Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayer and glass with PVB interlayer) is considered and in each case the thickness which prevents the bird from perforating the windshield is calculated. Since helicopters can have lateral movement in addition to their longitudinal movement, the effect of incident angle on the integrity of windshield is also investigated. Simulations showed that among the five cases presented, glass with PVB interlayer can be the best choice for being used in windshield against bird strike. Another conclusion is that for the same initial velocity, the angled impact can cause more damage in the windshield than the direct impact.