Virginia Tech researchers are urging changes in how commercial aircraft engines are designed in the wake of a possible new threat to passenger aircraft safety: the likelihood of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, being sucked into turbofan engines at high speeds.

Such an impact could be devastating to the engine after ingesting the hard-shell center of a drone’s electronics housing.

Computer-simulated tests completed by researchers at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering suggest that 8-pound quadcopter drone can rip apart the fan blades of a 9-foot-diameter turbofan engine during take-off in less than 1/200th of a second. Broken blades also would create more fragments contributing to potential engine failure.

“Because the damage is spread to a large section of the engine, it is unlikely that it will be able to maintain thrust,” says Javid Bayandor, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech and director of the university’s Crashworthiness for Aerospace Structures and Hybrids (CRASH) laboratory.

(Read as Rick DeMeis puts the Parrot Bebop drone through the paces.)

Work began three years ago with the group computer modeling advanced turbofan aircraft engine impacts by birds.

“Because of the unprecedented damage a small or even micro unmanned aircraft systems can inflict on a passenger aircraft, pilots cannot risk flying in the same airspace where there are drones,” says Bayandor. “While strict regulations are already in place to isolate drones from operations in controlled airspace, their enforcement have proven challenging, due to the anonymity of drone users.”

U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations require commercial aircraft to adhere to design criteria that help ensure the aircraft’s survival after a midair collision with smaller “soft” airborne objects, such as birds. However, little investigation has been conducted on ingesting drones into larger engines.

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