The Development of a Substitute Bird Model

A comprehensive program was conducted to develop a model synthetic bird for use in engine blade impact testing. A hydrodynamic theory of the impact event was used to aid in determining the bird properties which had to be duplicated in the model. Of the two candidate models studied extensively, it was determined that a projectile fabricated from commercial gelatin impregnated with phenolic mircoballoons most nearly duplicated the impact loading history of real birds.