Explicit Finite-Element Analysis of 2024-T3/T351 Aluminum Material under Impact Loading for Airplane Engine Containment and Fragment Shielding

Uncontained aircraft engine failure can cause catastrophic damaging effects to aircraft systems if not addressed in the aircraft design. Mitigating the damaging effects of uncontained engine failure and improving the numerical modeling capability of these uncontained engine events are crucial. In this paper, high strain rate material behavior of one of the most extensively used materials in the aircraft industry is simulated and the results are compared against ballistic impact tests. Ballistic limits are evaluated by utilizing explicit finite-element (FE) simulations based on the corresponding ballistic impact experiments performed at different material thicknesses. LS-DYNA is used as a nonlinear explicit dynamics FE code for the simulations. A Johnson–Cook material model with different sets of parameters is employed as a thermo-viscoplastic material model coupled with a nonlinear equation of state and an accumulated damage evaluation algorithm for the numerical simulations. Predictive performance of the numerical models is discussed in terms of material characterization efforts, material model parameters, mesh sensitivities, and effects of stress triaxiality. It is shown that mesh refinement does not necessarily provide better results for ballistic limit simulations without considering and calibrating these interrelated factors. Moreover, it is shown that current models that can only fit a specific function for damage evaluation as a function of stress triaxiality are not always successful in predicting failure, especially if the state of stress changes significantly.