Energy-Absorbing Airframes for General Aviation

Concept for protecting people in lightweight airplane crashes involves redesigning area between interior floor and outer skin of airplane belly to create subfloor strong enough to bear stresses of flight but crush under force of impact. Several concepts evaluated and five selected and designed as lower fuselage sections tested in NASA's crash-testing program. Notched corner concept, Corrugated Beam concept, Foam-Filled Cylinder concept, Corrugated Half Shell concept, and Canted Bulkhead concept. Experimental and analytical results indicate all five concepts perform well; upper floor remains structurally intact whereas crush zone collapses under essentially constant load.