Collisions between drones and rotorcraft: Modeling of the crash response of battery packs

Drones operating in an urban environment pose a potential collision threat to rotorcraft. In this paper, the battery pack of the DJI MAVIC 2 ZOOM is analyzed since the battery is considered to be the greatest threat due to its high weight and stiffness. Following a pyramid-type building block approach, a high-fidelity model simulation was developed for LSDYNA based on a wide range of experiments, ranging from quasi-static material tests to quasi-static component tests up to high-velocity impact experiments. The high-fidelity model allows the prediction of damage in potential collision scenarios between a high-speed rotorcraft and the battery pack of the drone. For the particular impact configuration analyzed within this paper, the drone battery does not cause catastrophic failure of the windshield of the rotorcraft.