During last years, the number of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), popularly known as drones, operating in the sky of urban centers has quite increased. Associated with this growth, the risk of airborne impacts between such vehicles and manned aircrafts, caused intentionally or not, has also increased. Aiming to understand the phenomena that occur during an impact between an UAS and a commercial aircraft wing, the present work aimed to reproduce this event in terms of numerical simulation and compare it with situations involving bird impact. Initially, corroboration of numerical models for the UAS most stiffened components was considered comparing impact simulations results with ballistic test data from the literature. Once the results were assumed to be acceptable, the UAS components were assembled together to represent the complete drone in subsequent impact simulations. Further, simulations were performed to corroborate a numerical smooth particle hydrodynamics model of a 1.8 kg bird. The bird model, which presented conservative results comparing to a theoretical model, was used to perform the initial dimensioning of a typical wing fixed leading edge for a commercial aircraft. The Johnson–Cook constitutive and failure model was used to analyze the aluminum wing skin failure. Then, the wing fixed leading edge, initially designed for bird strike, was subjected to impact with the UAS complete model in order to compare both impact scenarios involving the small aerial vehicle and the bird. The results confirmed that the UAS impact was more critical due to its structural materials, harder, tougher and stiffer, which induce higher and more concentrated loads in the impacted structure. In order to assure flight safety after impact with the UAS, different reinforcements were considered for the wing fixed leading edge structure. Finally, it was found that the solutions of increasing the spar thickness, reinforcing it with back stiffeners, and using an additional structure placed behind the leading-edge skin were capable to allow flight safety after impact, although these proposals induce increase of mass in the wing fixed leading edge structure of 13%, 13% and 10%, respectively.

在过去几年中，在城市中心的天空中运行的无人飞机系统 (UAS)（俗称无人机）的数量大幅增加。与这种增长相关的是，此类车辆与有人驾驶飞机之间有意或无意造成的空中撞击风险也有所增加。为了了解 UAS 和商用飞机机翼碰撞过程中发生的现象，目前的工作旨在通过数值模拟重现这一事件，并将其与涉及鸟类撞击的情况进行比较。最初，考虑将冲击模拟结果与文献中的弹道测试数据进行比较，以验证 UAS 最坚固部件的数值模型。一旦结果被认为是可以接受的，UAS 组件组装在一起，以在随后的撞击模拟中代表完整的无人机。此外，还进行了模拟以证实 1.8 公斤鸟的平滑粒子流体动力学数值模型。与理论模型相比，鸟模型提供了保守的结果，用于执行商用飞机的典型机翼固定前缘的初始尺寸设计。Johnson-Cook 本构和失效模型用于分析铝翼蒙皮失效。然后，最初设计用于鸟类撞击的机翼固定前缘与 UAS 完整模型进行撞击，以比较涉及小型飞行器和鸟类的两种撞击场景。结果证实，由于其结构材料更硬、更硬、更硬，UAS 的影响更为严重，这会在受影响的结构中引起更高和更集中的载荷。为了确保与无人机碰撞后的飞行安全，机翼固定前缘结构考虑了不同的加固。最后，发现增加翼梁厚度、用后加强筋对其进行加固以及使用放置在前缘蒙皮后面的附加结构的解决方案能够确保撞击后的飞行安全，尽管这些建议导致了质量的增加。机翼固定前缘结构分别为13%、13%和10%。