I recall that during US1549's birdstrike incident that resulted in it landing on the Hudson, a large amount of migrating geese weighing upto 20lbs each were sucked into the A320's engines — far bigger and heavier than previously certified.
I believe that at the time the engines were tested & certified by throwing small chickens or similar, one at a time, into the engines. Has this certification process been improved at all since this incident?
There are hundreds of tests that need to be performed for certification of a turbine engine.
The FAA requirements and tests are listed in CFR part 33 E and F.
Amongst them are:
A number of them can be seen in este vídeo of the GE90-115 Engine
The specific requirement for bird ingestion are described in §33.76. The number of birds to be used and their weight depends on the area of the engine inlet.
There have been several changes to the bird ingestion requirements for certification since the A320 engine was certified in 1996. However, once an engine is certified there is no need to demonstrate compliance to the updated requirements; the engine remains certified as it was.
The latest update to these requirements was in 2007, prior to the Hudson accident. To answer your question: no, there have not been any changes to the bird strike testing requirements of engines in the aftermath of the Hudson accident.
Tem multiple various requirements, por exemplo:
There are also requirements for various sizes and number of birds in between, and some requirements depend on the inlet size. In general, seems that after the bird strike the engine is required to stay safe and even work for some time, but not for long.