Effect of Impact Orientation on Bird Strike Analysis

Impacts between birds and aircrafts, known as bird-strike events, are very common and dangerous. Not many investigations have been carried out on the effect of orientation at which a bird impacts a surface. However, it can be an important factor because in real bird strike events, the birds do not always impact a surface from the same orientation. In this paper, a geometrical model for birds which is more similar to a real bird anatomy is introduced and used. Next, the results obtained from different orientations at which a Bufflehead duck strikes a surface are compared. It is concluded that the bottom side impact is the most dangerous scenario while the tail side impact is the less dangerous scenario.