Abstract

Sikorsky S-61 or better known as “Nuri” had served the Malaysian aviation sector for the past four decades. It is mainly used for transportation, combat search and rescue purposes. However, there were Nuri helicopter crashes or accident cases reported during its operation period which involved loss of its occupants. The pilot survivability rate can be improved provided that the vertical impact loading on the helicopter is reduced during the crash accident. Utilization of an energy absorbing pilot seat or cockpit structure maybe one of the approaches to minimize the impact shock exerted to the occupants. However, the shock or maximum acceleration of the cockpit/pilot seat has to be first determined before a thorough design scheme can be undertaken. In this study, a vertical crash event of the Nuri pilot seat from 500 feet altitude was simulated and the maximum acceleration rate was determined using MSC PATRAN/LS-DYNA. The pilot survivability was determined by comparing the result with human tolerance criteria data available in other published works. From the result, it was found that the maximum acceleration of the Nuri pilot seat was 584.4g at 19. 63 milliseconds, thus it can be concluded that the survivability aspect of the pilot is fatal when compared to other published works.

Keywords:

Crash, aircraft, aerospace, finite element analysis, impact,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.