A Novel Design of Landing Gear Oleo Strut Damper Using MR Fluid for Aircraft and UAV’s

Abstract:

Most landing gears used in aircraft employ very efficient oleo-pneumatic dampers to absorb and dissipate the impact kinetic energy of the aircraft body frame. A single-acting shock absorber is most commonly used in the oleo strut that has a metering pin extending through the orifice, which can vary the orifice area upon compression and extension of the strut. This variation is adjusted by shaping the metering pin so that the strut load is fairly constant under dynamic loading. In this paper, it is proposed to further change the damping coefficient as a function of time in order to achieve a semi-active control of the aircraft vibrations during landing by using Magnetorheological (MR) fluid in the Oleo. With the metering pin designed for a nominal flight condition, further variation in the fluid viscosity would help achieve the optimal performance in off-nominal flight conditions. A simulation approach is employed to show the effect of different profiles for viscosity variation in the MR fluid. The utility of such a damper can be very well exploited to include different criteria such as the landing distance after touchdown. This type of system can be used also in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) application where the focus of design may be to accomplish the task without the consideration of passenger comfort.

• Periodical: Applied Mechanics and Materials (Volume 225)
• Pages: 275-280
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.225.275
• Online since: November 2012
• Authors: Chandra B. Asthana, Rama B. Bhat
• Keywords: Biviscous Model, Magnetorheological Fluid Damper, Oleo Damper

References

[1] J. Ronald Wilson and M.McKayJames, Landing loads and accelerations of the XB-70-1 airplane, NASA TN D-4836, 1968.

[2] S.C. Norman, Aircraft Landing Gear Design: Principles and Practices, AIAA Education Series, 1988.

[3] W. Flugge, Landing-gear Impact, NACA Technical Note, 2743 (1952)

[4] D. C. Batterbee, N. D. Sims, R. Stanway, Z. Wolejsza, Magnetorheological landing gear: 1. A design methodology, Smart Materials and Structures, 16 (2007), 2429-2440.

DOI: 10.1088/0964-1726/16/6/046

[5] D.H. Wangand W.H. Liao, Magnetorheological fluid dampers: a review of parametric modeling, Smart Materials and Structures, 20(2011), 1-34.

[6] I. Yousef and R.K. Hamid, Hysteresis model parameters identification for the SAS rotational MR damper, WSEAS Transactions on Systems and Control, 6 (2011), 371-381.

[7] N.M. Wereley, L. Pang and G.M. Kamath, Idealized hysterisis modeling of electrorheological and megnetorheological dampers, Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 9 (1998), 642-649.

DOI: 10.1177/1045389x9800900810

[8] R. Stanway, J.L. Sproston and A.K. EI-Wahed, Applications of electro-rheological fluids in vibration control: a servey Smart Material Systems and Structures, 5(1996), 464-482.

DOI: 10.1088/0964-1726/5/4/011