Integrated Occupant Safety for Urban Air Mobility Applications

Occupant Safety must be an integral part of the overall technical and management processes associated with the design, development, and operation of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) systems. Nowadays the crashworthiness design for aerospace applications under 14 CFR §§ *.561 and *.562 only address the dynamic response of the seat and restraint system during emergency landing conditions. In order to improve the survivability rate of occupants an integrated safety approach is required during the design, development, and operation of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) systems. In this paper, a typical Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) under two loading conditions as per 14 CFR §§ 27.727(a) and 27.562(b)(1) is evaluated. For this, a multibody model was developed and optimized using adaptive multivariable optimization algorithms. The results show that multibody and optimization tools in combination with robust design methodologies can significantly reduce the development and certification efforts for eVTOL vehicles.