Numerical Assessment of Additively Manufactured Lattice-Core Sandwich Structure for Enhanced Passenger Passive Safety in Aircraft Seats

Sandwich structures with lattice-based cores designed for Additive Manufacturing offer effective solutions for energy dissipation and passive safety enhancement. These structures combine compactness and lightness with the capability to absorb significant amounts of energy and can be adapted and integrated into existing components, enabling placement in strategic areas close to the passenger. In aviation, lattice-based sandwich structures can be integrated in several locations within the fuselage frame, cabin components, or seat systems to mitigate crash-landing risks for passengers. This work investigates the integration of a lattice-based sandwich structure in the rear part of a premium-economy class seat to enhance passenger safety in the event of impact with the in front seat during a crash landing. The CAD 3D full seat model was filtered for confidentiality reasons and provided by Geven S.p.A sandwich structure configuration has been analyzed with a lattice-based core designed for additive manufacturing (AM) applications. A high-fidelity Finite Element model of the seat, incorporating the sandwich structure, has been developed in LS-DYNA to simulate a sled test. An FE-based anthropomorphic test device (ATD) has been included to simulate its forward impact against the front seat, allowing for the assessment of the sandwich structure’s performance as an energy absorber through the evaluation of the Head Injury Criterion (HIC). The objective is to evaluate the contribution of the sandwich structure to passenger passive safety. The assessment is carried out by comparing the numerical response of the baseline configuration with that of the model incorporating the energy-absorbing device under equivalent crash-loading conditions.