Various annlyses of landing gear design are vesented, along with a discussion of critical loading conditibns.

landing gear features an oleo-pneumatic shock strut which, as the name suggests, is filled with oil and air. The strut has a dual function: to dissipate the kinetic energy of vertical velocity on landing, and to provide ease and stability for ground maneuvering. A schematic of an oleo-pneumatic shock strut is shown in Figure 1. When the airplane lands, the oil is forced from the lower chamber to the upper one through an orifice. Most struts have a metering pin extending through this orifice that strokes with the piston. By varying pin diameter, orifice area is varied, allowing optimization of the shock strut efficiency. Figure 2 shows typical landing gear components. The landing gear also enables the aircraft to roll up to its takeoff position and to take off without using a launching catapult or trolley, as well as to carry its own means of braking, without resorting to external arresting equipment. Shock struts are designed to withstand a vertical sink rate of 10 ft/s for commercial airplanes, and as much as 25 ft/s for carrier-based aircraft. In service, the probability of a 10 ft/s touchdown is about one in 10,000,000 for a commercial airliner. Typical landing gear sizes are shown in Figure 3. One company that produces landing gear is BFGoodrich Landing Gear Division. BFGoodrich produces landing gear for commercial iets; executive jets; Air Force bombers, fighters, and transports; Naval fighters and trainers; and helicopters. The gross weight of these aircraft ranges from 9700 to 878,000 lb. The firm is currently designing landing gear for a New Large Airplane that has a mass exceeding 1,000,000 lb. The two basic types of landing gear are cantilever and articulated. The most widely used configuration is cantilever, which is also the most cost and weight efficient. With this type, the shock strut supports drag and side loads. Illustrations of single-axle a n d double-axle cantilever gear are shown in Figure 4. Articulated gear are used for cases in which the ground clearance is low or stowage room is limited. They offer a maintenance advantage, since the shock strut can be removed in the field without major effort. European companies often prefer articulated gear to obtain a smoother taxi ride over uneven runways. The shock strut is pin ended and does not support drag and side loads.
Aerospace Engineering/March 1996

Semi-articulated gear configuration is similar to fully articulated, except that the cylinder also acts as a structural member, and carries drag and side loads. This type of gear is not widely used. Fully articulated and semi-articulated gear are shown in Figure 5 . Flotation analysis determines the capability of an aircraft to operate on a specific airfield. Flotation capability is primarily a function of total shock strut load, single-wheel load, and tire pressure. On this basis, the number of tires, tire size, and tire spacing are determined. Main gear are typically of a tandem, dual-tandem, or tri-dual-tandem configuration. Nose gear consist of a single or dual arrangement. Some gear must undergo sequenced shape change, such as retraction or planing, to fit in the wheel well when retracted. A rotating or planing mechanism is then designed into the gear. Another method consists of shrinking the shock strut during retraction to clear the gear into the wheel well. Other special features include provisions for uplocking the gear in the wheel well, bogie positioners to adjust the attitude of the truck beam for stowage, and launching mechanisms for navai applications. Although it might be assumed that the landing gear is subjected to its highest loads during landing, in reality, landing conditions are critical for only about 20% of the landing gear structure. Ground handling conditions, especially turning and taxiing, are critical for the remainder of the structure. Every landing gear has its own set of loads, which are critical for various components of the gear. For a given gear, landing load conditions which may be critical include maximum sinkspeed landing, level landing, tail landing, lateral drift landing, spin up, and spring back. Critical ground handling load conditions include taxiing, towing, turning, jacking, braking, pivoting, and steering. Other load conditions consist of extension and retraction actuator load, brake application during retraction, brake chatter, shimmy, rebound, catapult launching, uplock/

downlock, and tie-down loads. strength of the component material. Then Landing gear loads include limit loads, a utilization factor is determined by comOrifice ruppon tube which are the highest loads that the gear bining all the stress ratios. This factor may be subjected to during its service life. must be maintained at less than 1.0 to have (air) Ultimate loads are limit loads multiplied a positive margin of safety. by a safety factor of 1.5. Fatigue loads Fatigue design criterion of aircraft consist of a spectrum of realistic loads to structures are usually one of the followwhich the structure will be subjected during: infinite-life, safe-life, fail-safe, and ing its service life. Sustained loads are damage-tolerant design. Because landing those on the gear components from carrygear structures do not have redundancy in ing the weight of the airplane, 1-g, in static their means of support, the safe-life criteRecoil chamber condition, or those due to shrinking the rion is used. The calculation of the shock strut. component's life may be based on stressStructural analyses of landing gear inlife or strain-life relations. The safe life clude static, fatigue, fracture mechanics, includes margins for the scatter of fatigue damage tolerance, sustained stress, finite results and for other unknown factors. element, and weight-strength optimizaThe fatigue life consists of crack-initiation tion analyses. and crack-propagation stages. Static analysis incorporates tests for the Landing gear materials usually feature following: an initiation stage, consisting of 90-95% of ultimate static strength -stresses due to the total life, and a propagation stage of 5ultimate loads are not allowed to exceed 10% of the total life. Because of this safethe ultimate allowables of the component life criterion, landing gear must have dematerial fined inspection techniques, frequencies, Figure 1. Oleo-pneumatic shock absorber. yield strength - stresses due to limit and replacement times so that probability loads are not- allowed to exceed the yield allowabies of the of failure due to fatigue cracking is extremely remote. component material (no permanent deformation is permitted Many military programs require sufficient residual strength under limit loads) for a damaged structure to be able to withstand limit loads static and dynamic gear stability - especially during highwithout catastrophic failure. In the detailed fatigue analysis, speed takeoff roll each load/unload cycle constitutes a fatigue pair. Stresses/ component stability -column checks of compression-loaded strains at each end are determined. An equivalent, fully reversed components. stress level or strain range is calculated, and from the stress-life In the detailed analysis, all the stresses - axial, shear, bendor strain-life relation, the life is determined. These relations are ing, and torsion -are calculated at a section, and a stress ratio is curves of test data for the material. By dividing the life read from calculated for each by dividing the stress by the allowable

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Small Grumman Gulfstream I1 Boelng 737 McDonnell F4B North American OV-1OA Ling Ternco Vought F8H North Amercan T2B McDonnell F4C Douglas DC-9 McDonnell F-15

Medium Conva~r 880 * Boemg 707 Douqlas DC-8 ~ockheed C-141 Grumrnan A6A

Large Boe~ng 747 Douglas DC-10

I
Downlock actuator

Figure 3. Typical landing gear sizes.

Lower side strut Truck positioning actuator Positioning mechanism

Upper torsion link

torsion link

pull box

, wheel, and brake

Figure 2. Component nomenclature.

the curve by the required life for the subject load pair, the damage ratio for this loading condition is determined. Similarly, the damage ratio is determined for all loading conditions. The summation of all damage ratios is referred to as cumulative damage ratio - and it should not exceed 1.0. Fracture mechanics and damage tolerance analyses are performed to predict the growth of an existing crack. Sustained stresses caused by 1-8 static reaction are checked on components such as axles, truck beams, and trunnion pins, and must be below the allowable sustained stress threshold of the material. The finite element method (FEM) of analysis has become widely used in areas of redundant load paths and complex geometric transitions. Weight/strength optimization is an especially important task of the structural analysis. The landing gear

14

Aerospace Engineering/March 1996

Another considera tion in designing structure must be of sound structurai inlanding gear is material selection. Landtegrity and at a minimum possible weight. ing gear materials must be of high The value of a pound of weight is worth strength and stiffness, low cost and about $200-$300 on a recurring basis. weight, and have good machinability, Performance analyses must also be weldability, and forgeability. They also conducted on landing gear. Shimmy must be resistant to corrosion, stress coranalysis is performed to determine rosion, hydrogen embrittlement, and whether the gear will shimmy during arms crack initiation and propagation. Because high-speed roll, and provide the necessary of the stringent requirements, landing damping. (Shimmy is a self-induced gear components are fabricated from buildup of a high-frequency oscillation of forgings. Castings have not been accepta landing gear structure.) Retraction able for landing gear structures due to analysis is performed to size the retract -? Ebubie-ade poor fatigue-related characteristics such actuator to enable gear retraction into the as grain flow and porosity. wheel well in a required time span. Paper Brace The most widely used landing gear drop analysis is performed to size the oristeel is 300M steel. It is heat treated to a fice and the metering pin to meet landing 280,000-psi strength level. European energy dissipation requirements, and is equivalents to 300M are S155 and later verified by actual drop testing. Re35NCD16 steels. Recently developed bound analysis is performed to calculate Aermet 100 has the strength of 300M and loads from the sudden extension of the substantially superior fracture toughness shock strut during takeoff, and provide and stress corrosion thresholds. It is also damping, if needed. Kinematics analysis Brake rods five times the cost of 300M. When checks the trajectories of components durstrength is not critical, but stiffness is, ing retraction and extension to assure that igure 4. Cantilever gear. 180,000-psi 4340 steel is used. HP-9-4-30 there is no interference between two comand HY-TUF steel have a 220,000-psi ponents or with adjacent structures along strength, but a high fracture toughness, and have been widely the entire path. ~aunch-bar dynamics and kinematics analysis is used in naval gear. performed for naval nose gear. Among nonferrous alloys, the most widely used are highReliability and maintainability analyses are also performed. strength titanium alloys such as Ti-1OV-2Fe-3Al and Ti-6A1-6VIn addition, such issues as material compatibiiity, wear proteclSn, and high-strength aluminum alloys such as 7075-T73 and tion, and corrosion protection are considered. 7175-T74. European equivalents are IMI1551 titanium and AZ74 aluminum. Manufacturing and processing considerations are also critical. A typical outer cylinder for a widebody jet is made from a forging. For example, the forge shop starts with an 8000-lb round billet, and using a series of dies and tremendously high loads, shapes the billet into a forging that resembles the envelope Cylinder of the finished part. This process takes place a: approximately 2000F. After thermal treatment, the forging is shipped to the gear manufacturer in a subcritical annealed condition, with a Piston Rockwell "C" hardness around 25, and a 120,000-psi tensile strength. In this condition, the part goes through numerous rough machining operations: Lever location of tooling points profiling rough boring of inside diameters \ / rough turning of outside diameters rough drilling of lug holes rough milling of faces barbering, or metal finishing. At this stage, the close tolerance features are not machined to the final blueprint requirements, anticipating some distortion during heat treatment. After rough machining, the part is heat treated to its final condition -Rockwell "C" hardness 53-55, and a tensile strength of 250,000-300,000 psi. Following heat treatment, all the features are machined to the blueprint requirements. Final turning, boring, and milling occur at this stage. Further operations include: cutting of threads drilling, boring, and reaming of lug holes Figure 5. Articulated gear. grinding, as necessary
\

Aerospace EngineeringIMarch 1996

-i

Aft spherical

Figure 6. Bare and dressed gear.

honing of inside diameters final barbering and blending corner radii. At this stage, the part is finish machined, and weighs about 1200 lb, or 6800 Ib lighter than the forging. These 6800 lb went into chips. Following machining, the part is: dimensionally inspected

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nital etch inspected to 'issure no thermal damage during machining stress relieved magnetic particle inspected to assure no cracks, indications, discontinuities shot peened to induce residual compressive stresses on the surface of the part, and enhance fatigue resistance wear surfaces are chrome plated cadmium plated for corrosion resistance embrittlement relief baked to prevent hydrogen embrittlement chrome is ground, if required final magnetic particle inspection is conducted bushings are installed primed painted strut is assembled leakage of the strut is tested per blueprint requirements. To validate the design, and obtain gear qualification and certification, landing gear structures may be subjected to the following tests: Drop testing to verify the capability of the gear to dissipate the kinetic landing energy Ultimate static testing verifies the ability of the structure to support ultimate loads without failure for three seconds Limit load testing to verify lack of permanent deformation of the structure Fatigue testing to demonstrate the ability to withstand spectrum loading Photostress testing may be done on a plastic model to locate high stress areas before the actual parts are being produced. The test occurs during design. Strain gauge surveys are performed to correlate calculated stresses with the actuals Element tests are performed on an isolated component to eliminate larger setups Sudden extension testing Retraction/extension testing Environmental testing. Engineers foresee some trends in landing gear design. One of these concerns the transfer of system integration responsibilities from airplane manufacturers to landing gear suppliers. Landing gear systems, including the gear, wheel, brake, tire, hydraulic plumbing, electric harnesses, and microswitches, are expected to become the responsibility of landing gear suppliers. Bare and dressed gear are illustrated in Figure 6. Smart structures, carrying embedded microgauges, will become increasingly important, as more emphasis is given to health monitoring of aging airplanes. High-strength composites will find applications in landing gear structures. Oil-level monitoring devices will be produced; and steels, titaniums, and aluminums of higher strength and toughness will be developed.
Information for this article was provided by Jack Pink, BFGoodrich Landing Gear Division.
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Aerospace Engineering/March 1996