Vertical Drop Test and Simulation of a Fokker F-28 Fuselage Section

In March 2017, a vertical drop test of a 3.048-m (10-ft) section of a Fokker F-28 aircraft was conducted as part of a joint FAA/NASA effort to investigate the performance of transport aircraft under realistic crash conditions. The section was configured with two rows of aircraft seats, in a triple-double configuration. A total of ten anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) were secured in the seats using standard seat belt restraints. The section was also configured with luggage in the cargo hold and two hat racks, each with added ballast mass. The drop test was performed at the Landing and Impact Research facility located at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The planned impact velocity was 9.144-m/s (360-in/s) onto soil. A second objective was to assess the capabilities of finite element simulations to predict the test response. A finite element model was developed for execution in LS-DYNA, a commercial explicit nonlinear transient dynamic code. The model contained accurate representations of the airframe structure, the hat racks and hat rack masses, the floor and seat tracks, and the luggage in the cargo hold. Concentrated masses were used to represent the inertial properties of the seats, restraints, and ATD occupants. The model was executed to generate analytical predictions of airframe responses, which were compared with test data to validate the model.