Numerical analysis of UAV impact on building glazing

Drones have become a widespread technology in both civil and military applications. Small dimension light quadcopters gained popularity because of their low cost and availability. Recent development in 3D printing technology made also this technology even more accessible. Increased concerns are also about the safety of population and housing against both malicious attacks and unintentional crashes. Building glazing can be a particularly sensitive target to such threats. To assess the performance of building glazing against impact of quadcopter, a material glass model was firstly implemented in Ls-Dyna and validated with available experimental data (against both impacts and detonation loads). Secondly, a FE model of a dummy quadcopter drone was developed. Lasty, simulation of impacts ranging from 20 to 30 m/s and for different drone pitch and yaw angles were carried out. The numerical results were compared to an experimental crash test to assess the prediction capacity of the proposed model.