Foreign object impact assessment of a high-Mach engine inlet

The paper presents a foreign-object damage (FOD) assessment of the engine inlet region of a high-velocity aircraft design. Of particular interest is the potential for damage to the active cooling system, which is an integral part of the external skin. A variety of impactors is considered, including hailstones, birds, and rocks of various sizes. An explicit finite element solution, which permits detailed modeling of inelastic material behavior and other nonlinearities, is used for the simulations. The paper also discusses some general aspects of foreign object impact modeling and explicit solution techniques.