Computational Modeling of Thoracic Injury Response due to Impact of a Small Unmanned Aerial System (SUAS)

This study aims to establish a computational model that will predict the injury response after a sUAS impacts the thorax. A rotary and fixed winged sUAS were chosen for analysis. A vast number of numerical simulations were carried out with varying masses, impact velocities, and impact angles. From the simulation results, the maximum viscous criterion was then calculated. A nonlinear surrogate model was established by setting the impact parameters as independent variables and the viscous criterion as the dependent variable. A correlation analysis showed the impact velocity and angle to significantly influence the results more, when compared to the mass. The surrogate model was then tested against randomly selected cases and showed to have good agreement. The highest percent difference was 9.49%. Simulating a wider range of masses can improve the validity of this model. The surrogate model would become useful in estimating the maximum viscous criterion for possible injury responses