AIRCRAFT ENGINE FRAGMENT BARRIERS

SRI International is performing research under contract to FAA to design barriers to protect critical aircraft components against fragments resulting from uncontained failure of a turbine engine. Review of DoD armor technology indicated that advanced high-strength polymers have the best combination of low weight and high ballistic resistance for practical barriers. We are using these advanced materials to develop practical fragment barriers in commercial aircraft by generating ballistic data and building a computational capability for barrier design.

Laboratory impact experiments on high-strength polymer fabrics have helped us establish the failure mechanism of fabrics and to conceptualize fragment barrier designs that mitigate the hazards of uncontained engine fragments. We have also performed experiments to measure the material and failure properties of yarns, and we are using this information to develop finite element models of fabric response. We have performed large-scale fragment impact experiments on barrier structures to verify the effectiveness of the barriers and to validate the computational model. As a results of this investigation we expect to deliver to the FAA information and software on advanced materials that will enable airframers and others to design and evaluate lightweight engine fragment barriers.