The FAA has a number of regulations to protect occupants in the event of an emergency landing.
These include structural requirements on the cabin interiors and seating systems.
However, in order for these systems to properly provide the necessary protection, the aircraft needs to have a baseline level of crashworthiness performance.
To research the effects on various emergency landing conditions, the FAA has conducted impact testing on a variety of aircraft over the years.
This has included both in house testing as well as sponsored research at other institutions.
This lecture will review a variety of these various tests, including the full-scale test of a Fokker 100 at the NASA Langley pendulum.
Speaker:
Dr. Joseph Pellettiere supports the development of occupant injury criteria for aerospace systems and the application of such criteria to the certification of aircraft structure, seats, cabin interiors, and small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS). He has been heavily involved in the development of processes and procedures of analysis methods within the certification process, with the ultimate goal of certification by analysis. Dr. Pellettiere supports transport, rotorcraft, small airplane, and small UAS certification programs.
Free admission, open to all members of the university community and the public, subject to availability.
01.10.2026