Dataset for Crashworthiness of the Flying-V Aircraft Concept with Vertical Drop Test Simulations

  This dataset is the official implementation of the following article, which can be found at: https://doi.org/10.31224/3034

Desiderio, M., Schuurman, M.,. Alderliesten, R. C, and Castro, S. G. P. (2024). Crashworthiness of the Flying-V Aircraft Concept with Vertical Drop Test Simulations (Version 3) [Preprint]. engrXiv. https://doi.org/10.31224/3034

Abstract

The following presents a preliminary assessment on the crash characteristics of the Flying-V aircraft, an unconventional configuration consisting of a V-shaped flying wing with an oval cabin cross section, currently being actively researched at TU Delft. Successively, the preliminary assessment is carried out by means of design of experiments, where four crash structure concepts are defined and evaluated. Virtual drop tests of the Flying-V typical fuselage section are performed while measuring the energy absorption of the fuselage, and the dynamic response index (DRI) and selected locations. The finite element modeling scheme is validated using the Fokker F-28 Fellowship typical section, for which physical drop test data is available. While a crashworthy typical section for the Flying-V could not be designed, it has been found that a conventional crash concept with a total of four oblique floor struts is able to absorb 72% of the total kinetic energy, with a DRI reaching 18.2 units. A sensitivity analysis shows that the bending stiffness of the frames has a critical role in the crashworthiness of the Flying-V, due to the increase in rigidity following pressurization loads of the oval fuselage section and that, additionally, the structural simplifications applied in the context of the research likely rendered the results overly-conservative. A 16% frame thickness reduction resulted in a DRI of 16.2 units, just above the 16 units typically required by regulators. Recommendations for future work include a structural sizing optimization where requirements from crashworthiness and airworthiness can be evaluated simultaneously as design constraints, enabling design for crashworthiness at the preliminary design.

 
Description

The present project includes all Abaqus input files of the vertical impact analyses performed in the article.

Authors

- Marco Desiderio (ORCID:     https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8161-8301)

- Michiel Schuurman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4182-0246)

- René Alderliesten (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1882-5396)
  
- Saullo G.P. Castro  (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9711-0991) 
  - Affiliation: CrashProofLab, Department of Aerospace Structures and Materials, Delft University of Technology, Delft, 2629HS, the Netherlands  
  - Role: Corresponding author  
  - Email: S.G.P.Castro@tudelft.nl

Folder structure

Dataset_Crashworthiness_Flying-V
├───Abaqus_input_files
└───readme.txt

The 75 input files located in the Abaqus_input_file folder correspond to the following concepts presented in Section II of the article:
    1. 4S-1 through 4S-5: conventional four-floor strut configuration
    2. 6S-1: conventional six-floor strut configuration
    3. HB-1 through HB-5: one horizontal beam with vertical floor struts configuration
    4. HBH-1 through HBH-3: a set or horizontal beams with vertical floor struts configuration
    
The input file naming convention can be generalized as A_B_C, where:
    - A denotes the configurations aforementioned
    - B and C denote the design variable along with its thickness, where:
        - FS = floor strut
        - FB = floor beam
        - VS = vertical strut
        - HB = horizontal beam
        - thicknesses are given in mm, with 05, 075, 10, 15, and 20 meaning 0.5, 0.75, 1.0 and 2.0 mm, respectively

© 2026 M. Desiderio, M. Schuurman, R. C. Alderliesten, S. G. P. Castro