Investigation of a Bird Strike Incident of a Military Gas Turbine Engine
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CASE HISTORY—PEER-REVIEWED
Investigation of a Bird Strike Incident of a Military Gas Turbine Engine R. K. Mishra • S. I. Ahmed • K. Srinivasan
Submitted: 3 June 2013 / in revised form: 21 August 2013 / Published online: 25 September 2013 ASM International 2013
Abstract This paper investigates a bird strike incident of a military gas turbine engine. The jet pipe temperature of the engine shoot up and rotor speed reduced suddenly during takeoff roll. Long flame was noticed from the engine and aircraft crashed at runway end. Forensic analysis of remnants collected from flow passages confirmed the bird ingestion. Blockage of flow passages due to the presence of bird has led to engine surge and high gas temperature resulting in extensive damage of low pressure turbine module. The paper also proposes remedial measures to avoid such bird strikes during flight. Keywords Damage
High temperature Microstructure
Introduction Collisions of birds and wild life with aircraft commonly termed as bird strike can have catastrophic consequences. They have resulted in the loss of many lives and more than 50 aircrafts in civil aviation [1]. Though it is difficult to estimate the losses in Military sector, there have been 283 R. K. Mishra (&) Regional Centre for Military Airworthiness-CEMILAC, E32/9 DRDO PHASE 2, C.V. Raman Nagar, Bangalore, Karnataka 560093, India e-mail: [email protected] S. I. Ahmed ORDAQA (Engines), DGAQA, Govt of India, Bangalore, Karnataka, India K. Srinivasan Hindustan Aeronautics Limited-Engine Division, Bangalore, India
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military aircraft lost and 141 deaths recorded, in the limited number of western nations from which data are available, between 1959 and 1999 [2]. About 35% of all the bird strike cases are found to be severe damaging the aircraft and causing fatal accidents. This has resulted in precautionary delays for safety checks and is an important cause of economic loss to both civil and military sectors [3]. In order to preserve human safety and to reduce this loss as far as possible, the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) and Military authorities in different countries have recommended various steps in the airports to reduce the risk of bird strikes as far as reasonably possible. Military aircrafts flying at high-speeds at low levels of 30–300 m, the altitude zone that is occupied by most birds, are at the highest exposure to bird strikes. Fighter and attack aircraft and associated trainers fly the majority of missions at this altitude. These aircrafts move so fast that birds and pilots have virtually no time to react. Birds of different species depending on the geographical location are often struck while soaring in the path of quickly moving aircrafts. In these high-speed collisions, even small birds can cause serious damage. Approximately 54% of the bird strikes on military aircraft and 90% of those to civil aircraft around the world occur in or near to airfields during takeoff [4–6]. Military aircrafts are also vulnerable to bird strike at bombing ranges where pilots d
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