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Optimization of A Main Landing Gear Locking Mechanism Using Bifurcation Analysis.pdf (1.84 MB)

Optimization of a main landing gear locking mechanism using bifurcation analysis

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-08-25, 12:38 authored by Yin Yin, Simon A. Neild, Jason Z. Jiang, James KnowlesJames Knowles, Hong Nie
A key part of the main landing gear (MLG) of a civil aircraft is its locking mechanism that holds the gear in the deployed or down-locked state. The locking is driven by a spring mechanism and its release by the unlock actuator. This paper considers this mechanism in terms of its stability and the locking and unlocking forces required for down-locking. To study this an analytical model was developed. The equations, consisting of geometric constraints and force/moment equilibriums, were derived using the coordinate transformation method. Using numerical continuation to solve these equations, the effect of the unlock force on the MLG retraction cycle was analyzed. The variation of a fold bifurcation point, which indicates the transition between the locked state and the unlocked state, gives further insight into the required unlock force that governs the sizing of the unlock actuator. Moreover, some important information, such as the critical position for the lock-links’ stops, the unlock position and the unlock force, are discussed using the bifurcation diagrams for the MLG retraction/extension cycle. Then, the effect of three key geometry parameters of the locking spring (the spring stiffness, unstrained spring length and spring attachment point) on the critical over-center angle and the unlock force are investigated. Finally, an optimization of the critical unlock force is carried out with a constraint on the initial over-center angle. The results show that the spring parameters have significant effects on the MLG’s retraction performance. A 37% reduction of the required unlock force is obtained through optimizing for the gear considered here.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11372129), the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutes, and the China Scholarship Council Studentship. In additions S. A. N. was supported by an EPSRC fellowship (EP/K005375/1).

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering

Published in

Journal of Aircraft: devoted to aeronautical science and technology

Citation

YIN, Y. ... et al, 2017. Optimization of a main landing gear locking mechanism using bifurcation analysis. Journal of Aircraft, 54(6), pp. 2126-2139.

Publisher

© American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-08-17

Publication date

2017

Notes

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Journal of Aircraft and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.2514/1.C034228

ISSN

0021-8669

eISSN

1533-3868

Language

  • en

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