Funding: Airbus Operations S.L.
Region: Industrial
Project period: 2013 – 2016
Principal Investigator: Dr. Cláudio Lópes (claudiosaul.lopes@imdea.org)

BLADE IMPACT is an industrial contract between Airbus Operations and the IMDEA Materials Institute in the framework of the pre-development of the NSA (New Single Aisle) open rotor rear end architecture in terms of structural design. The project aims at selecting and designing innovative composite shields against the high energy impact of an open-rotor blade on the aircraft fuselage. New materials or combinations thereof, and advanced structural concepts are being evaluated by means of testing and computational mechanical analyses taking into account damage and erosion of materials due to the impact.