KRASH related research projects at DLR

The DLR Institute of Structures and Design has been using the program KRASH for more than 20 years within numerous projects related to the crash simulation of airplanes and helicopters. Successful examples of the application of KRASH were e.g. the EU research project "Crashworthiness for Commercial Aircraft" in which a drop test was carried out with an Airbus A320 fuselage section. DLR created a KRASH model of this fuselage section and was able to provide pre-test simulation results of the selected impact scenario. This test was later also used for the verification of different FE models which were created by other project partners. In another EU research project ("CRAHVI"), DLR developed a KRASH model of a complete Airbus A321 which was used in the simulation of different impact scenarios for the generation of a cabin load database. This database contains acceleration, velocity and displacement time histories at different positions along the fuselage. In a currently running project for Airbus, DLR uses DRI-KRASH for the crash analysis of different possible configurations of future single-aisle aircraft. This paper concentrates on two projects which were recently completed: The first part shows the results of a study in which the usability of the lower deck of wide-body airplanes as additional passenger cabin was analysed, the second part deals with helicopter KRASH simulation in the EU research project "HeliSafe TA"