Conference entitled “Drone Strikes on Aircraft Structure: Damage Severity Assessment”

Doctor Azzedine Dadouche from NRC's Aerospace Research Center Canada, will host a conference entitled “Drone Strikes on Aircraft Structure:

Damage Severity Assessment”. The conference will take place on Sunday October 01, 2023 from 10 a.m. in the Conference room of the Institute of Aeronautics and Space Studies.

Drone Strikes on Aircraft Structure: Damage Severity Assessment

Dr. Azzedine Dadouche
Senior Research Officer
Aerospace Research Center
National Research Council Canada

Dr. Dadouche is a senior research officer at NRC's Aerospace Research Center with expertise in various areas of tribology such as performance characterization of rotor-support systems and abradable seals as well as prognostics and health management applied to bearings and gears. In addition, Dr. Dadoucheis NRC's expert in mid-air collisions such as bird and drone impacts on aircraft structure.

Mid-air collisions with birds or drones represent a real risk for civilian and military aircraft. To ensure passengers' safety and mitigate risks, regulators require engine and airframe manufacturers to certify their products for bird strike/ingestion at representative conditions. Although these regulations have been in force for years, certification testing remains a highly-specialized field, with unique problems to be solved for each test program. As the use of drones grows, new challenges have also emerged due to threats from inadvertent or malicious interference. The development of regulatory measures to mitigate this threat is hampered by the lack of drone/aircraft collision data and analytical tools; a problem which is further compounded by a lack of global test facilities or validated test methods. Existing bird cannon bore sizes and sabot designs are not suitable for this emerging application.To address these issues, NRC built a bigger cannon with a 44-cm bore to conduct research in this critical area, assess damage and provide regulators with evidence-based data for the development of drone navigation rules and procedures. This presentation provides an overall summary on the research being conducted at NRC.