Review on the crashworthiness design and evaluation of fuselage structure for occupant survivability

Abstract

Crashworthiness is the ability of civil aircraft fuselage structure and internal systems to maximum protect the occupants’ safety in a crash or emergency landing event, and is an important embodiment of the civil aircraft safety, which can determine the occupant survivability to a certain extent. The crashworthiness is dominated by the crash response characteristics of typical fuselage section (including occupant/seat restraint system), and the crashworthiness evaluation mainly includes fuselage structural response evaluation and occupant injury evaluation. Firstly, the crashworthiness requirements are sorted out according to the Airworthiness Standards of transport category airplanes and Special Conditions, and the research work on drop tests and crashworthiness numerical simulation of fuselage section are gathered. Then, the failure of typical skin-stringer-frame structures and fuselage section are analyzed, and the crash safety evaluation criteria are summarized. After that, the impact tolerance of various parts of human (head, neck, thoracic, spine, abdomen, extremity) and the occupant injury evaluation criteria are summarized. In addition, the crashworthiness design principles and design methods of fuselage section are outlined for occupant survivability. Finally, the crashworthiness evaluation under different crash factors and conditions (impact velocity, impact ground, cargo loading and aircraft wing position) are summed up, and the aircraft crashworthiness is comprehensively evaluated through integrating the survivable volume, the retention strength, the occupant injury and the emergency evacuation, and the crashworthiness evaluation process is outlined. This article is intended as a comprehensive literature review of crashworthiness design and evaluation of fuselage structure for occupant survivability.