Head and neck injuries can occur during ejection from an aircraft due to the aerodynamic forces on the pilot’s helmet. Reducing these types of injuries during ejection from aircraft is an important step in advancing aircrew safety. Understanding and being able to model the potential causes of injury allows design improvements to be made to prevent these risks.
Increased focus on the detailed mechanisms for injury during ejection forced a reappraisal of ejection simulation technology. At the time, no ejection seat simulation was able to predict coupled seat and occupant motion with aerodynamics.
The purpose of the study was to assess the feasibility to model this phenomenon using the LS-DYNA code, which Vorticity has used extensively to model fluid-structure interaction (FSI). LS-DYNA also allows for the simulation of bio-dynamics. We were able successfully to couple these capabilities to produce results that compared well with experimental data.