Composite landing gear design process

journal article - other

English

A composite landing gear springs never became widely adopted by GA manufacturers. Nowadays these composite springs are going to be popular in light sport aircrafts. This article describes an experience gained during design process of landing gear for VUT-061 aircraft. Several methods were used including analytical models and FEM models. Although these models are well understood, the composite landing gear design can lead the designers into serious problems, since the design requires also some empirical methods and an analysis of drop test to be used. By employing of sandwich failure criterion, the successful design can be achieved. Composite post processing software COMPOST for NASTRAN FEM solver was developed to meet these requirements. The usefulness of the Compost-software was demonstrated after drop test of first landing gear for VUT-061. There a crushing failure occurred. This failure was predicted by the COMPOST software, but could not be predicted by 2D FEM shell model, which was originally used. Later, the compost software was extended by a 1D-beam FEM solver cmFEM (composite mini FEM). This speeded up the analysis process of new spring, which later passed the drop test. In this article we present a comparison of design methods, which were useful during design and analysis process from viewpoint of a light aircraft manufacturer or a homebuilder.

FEM, Composite, Sandwich, Landing gear

FEM, Composite, Sandwich, Landing gear

SCHOŘ, P.; MALIŠ, M.; ŠPLÍCHAL, J.

2012

19. 10. 2012

VUT v Brně

VUT v Brně

1425-2104

RESEARCH BULLETIN

2012

22

Republic of Poland

1

10

10