Aircraft Horizontal Stabilizer (HSTAB) Leading Edge (LE) Stress Analysis

Colley Aerospace consulted in the design, development, and airworthiness certification of a Horizontal Stabilizer (HSTAB) Leading Edge (LE) structure for a business jet class aircraft. We performed the stress analysis, buckling analysis, and bird strike analysis on the fiber-reinforced composite and metallic structures that comprise the assembly.

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and classical hand analysis techniques were used to determine the airworthiness of the composite and metallic structures and all bolted joint interfaces. Detailed bird strike analyses were conducted on the leading edge structures using Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) techniques with generalized coupling and Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) methods. The bird strike analysis was used to determine the ability of the LE structure to withstand a bird strike in accordance with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations.

The analytical results were correlated to the actual bird strike test results, showing good agreement for leading-edge damage and bird splitting capability. We generated detailed reports for all of these assessments to support the FAA airworthiness certification process.