Dynamic Fatigue Tests Of Landing Gears

Landing gears are one of the main components of an aircraft. The landing gear is used not only during take-off and landing but also, in most cases, during ground manoeuvres. Due to its function, the landing gear is also one of the key safety components of the aircraft due to dissipating landing loads acting on the aircraft. The mentioned loads come from both the vertical and horizontal speeds during touchdown and by the aircraft’s losing the speed by braking. The landing gear is then loaded with constantly changing forces acting in various directions during every landing, with the only difference coming from their magnitude. The repeatable loading conditions cause significant wear of the landing gear. This wear can be divided into two categories, one is the wear of consumable parts such as the brake linings and the other is the fatigue wear of the structural components. The latter type of wear is much more dangerous due to its slow, and in many cases, unnoticeable progression. Fatigue wear can be estimated by numerical analyses – this method works with a great degree of probability on single components but due to the complexity of the landing gear as a whole it is not precise enough to be applied to the full structure. In order to evaluate the fatigue of the whole landing gear the best method accepted by regulations is the laboratory testing method. It involves a series of various drop tests resembling the real landing condition distribution. The aim of the tests is to check the fatigue wear of the landing gear and to prove its reliability for certification and/or operational purposes.

In this paper the author describes the basics of the landing gear fatigue wear, possibilities of its evaluation and presents laboratory dynamic method used for extensive tests in life-like operation conditions.