A work presented on ECCM16 – 16TH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON COMPOSITE MATERIALS, Seville, Spain, 22-26 June 2014

This work focuses on the study of medium velocity (~70 m/s) oblique impacts on the lower surface of helicopter blades. In this study, the influence of the local curvature of the blade on the response to an oblique impact is investigated.  A numerical study is also performed. It is shown that for the geometries involved in the design of helicopter blades, the curvature does not have any influence on the structural response to an impact. However, in the case of oblique impacts, the curvature can change locally the impact angle so that the damage is different than for impacts on a planar sample.

Read more at : http://www.escm.eu.org/eccm16/assets/0339.pdf