Seat Design Modifications with Numerical Simulation to Improve Pilot Safety

Lortie Aviation mandated Creaform Engineering to do an advanced numerical simulation to reproduce the dynamics of pilot ejection on a Martin-Baker seat in a Hawker Hunter fighter jet.
During the project, the engineers relied on a combination of various techniques, including 3D scanning, 3D modeling (for reverse engineering the pilot seat), physical tests for material characterization, and numerical simulation (more precisely, explicit dynamics finite element analysis using LS-DYNA).
After simulation analyses, the team was able to propose and implement mitigation strategies to reduce the impulse and peak of pelvis acceleration and lumbar loads.