Aircraft Transparency Systems

The Structures and Mechanical Systems group has conducted more than $30 million worth of aircraft transparency-related work in the past 25 years. We have worked extensively with the US Air Force, NAVAIR, and the aerospace transparency community on the design, development, and analysis of aircraft transparency systems in many areas:

• We have worked with all major US transparency manufacturers and airframers on the design, analysis, development, fabrication, and testing of high performance transparency systems. Aircraft include the A-7, B-1, B-2, C-130, F-111, F-4, F-5, F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-22, JPATS, JSF, KTX-2, KC-135, LearJet 45, S-3 and T-38.
• We have experience with designing and fabricating prototype and production flight hardware including both metallic and composite material systems.
• We understand diverse aircraft transparency system integration requirements, including those for optics, durability, performance, ejection, man/machine interface, etc. UDRI also has experience with writing aircraft transparency performance specifications as well as qualification testing requirements.
• We have extensive research facilities that have been tailored to address specific transparency-related problems, including structural analysis software for bird impact-resistant design, durability test equipment for evaluating environmental effects on transparent materials, high strain rate test facilities for generating transparency material properties for design, and facilities for bird impact testing.

Finite element analysis and full-scale birdstrike testing of a high performance transparency system.