Department Structural Integrity

Department

Structural Integrity

The Structural Integrity department works on the development of crashworthy and impact resistant lightweight structures made of metallic, composite or hybrid materials. This includes material and structure tests as well as numerical analyses from sample level up to full-scale structures.

Our research work focuses on the short-time dynamic load cases like crash, ditching and high-speed impact of various impactors like birds, FODs, hail, tyre pieces, drones, etc. The areas of application are aviation (aircraft, helicopters, air-taxis), road and rail transport systems. The main objective of new design developments is the improvement of energy absorption capacity and thus operation safety without noticeably impairing the load-bearing capacity and increasing weight.

Furthermore, the department develops numerical process chains for automatic modelling and calculation of structures for integration into multidisciplinary analysis and optimisation chains.

Competencies:

    • Quasi-static and dynamic material characterisation (metals, composites, etc. ...)
    • Dynamic testing of structures and components (gas guns, drop tower, high-speed testing machines)
    • Modelling and numerical simulations of materials
    • Numerical simulation for crash and impact applications
    • Development and optimisation of crash and impact resistant designs
    • Simulation methods to predict failure mechanisms under dynamic loading
    • Flexible design environment for integration of static and dynamic structural analyses into multidisciplinary analysis and optimisation process chains
Scientist behind our Universal Testing Machine
Image: 1/4, Credit:
Fuselage section under crash loads
Simulation with a five-frame fuselage section: Evaluation of an aircraft fuselage crash concept made of carbon fibre composites and including a filigree sub-cargo structure.
Image: 2/4, Credit:
High speed impact test with a substitute bird
High-speed impact test with the 3.6 kg DLR artificial bird at 185 m/s in the gas gun laboratory of the Institute of Structures and Design to demonstrate the splitter principle of a nose structure
Image: 4/4, Credit:

Contact

Dr.-Ing. Nathalie Toso

Head
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute of Structures and Design
Structural Integrity
Pfaffenwaldring 38-40, 70569 Stuttgart