Damage behavior of aircraft radome under high-speed jet impact

As the main component of the aircraft leading edge, the radome is often the first to be hit by raindrops and cause structural damage when passing through a rain field. Rain resistant coating is usually applied to ensure the performance protection requirements. In order to clarify the rain erosion damage mechanism of radome coating and explore the influencing factors and mechanisms of coating material damage under different jet impact conditions, impact tests were conducted on three types of skin coating samples, and the damage mode was observed through electron microscopy characterization. The experimental results show that the typical morphology of rain erosion damage is annular surface peeling damage. The damage area and volume of the three coating samples increase with the continuous increase of raindrop impact velocity. The threshold velocity for initial damage to the coating is about 360 m/s; under the influence of the velocity component, the reduction in impact angle leads to a gradual reduction in the degree of damage to the sample. ABAQUS finite element simulation software was used to establish a constitutive model for coating rain erosion simulation and obtain the propagation law of stress waves during the impact process. The simulation results show that at the 75° impact angle, the jet impacts the surface of the specimen at different velocities, and as the impact velocity increases, the Mises equivalent stress on the surface shows an increasing trend, which is one of the main factors causing damage with increasing velocity. The effectiveness, rain erosion damage mode, and influencing mechanism of the model were verified based on the test results; the dynamic failure mechanism of the sample was further studied, and the stress propagation process at different impact angles was compared, revealing the influence mechanism and damage law of the impact angle on the high-speed raindrop impact of the material.