Parametric Study of a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Ingestion Into a Business Jet Size Fan Assembly Model

Abstract

This work investigated the damage severity of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) ingestion into fan models of a midsized business jet engine. The ingestion of the quadcopter UAV model into the fan was carried out in ls-dyna. The material models used for the quadcopter and the fan were previously validated, and the fan's durability was simulated through simulated bird ingestions. The results of this work show that UAVs will cause significantly more damage than birds due mostly to the hard components typically used in motors, batteries, and cameras. Particular parameters of the ingestion studied include the phase of flight of the plane, impact location and orientation, and fan blade thickness.