STRESS AND FATIGUE ANALYSIS OF LANDING GEAR AXLE OF A TRAINER AIRCRAFT

Abstract

The undercarriage or landing gear of an aircraft is the structure that supports an aircraft on the ground and allows it to taxi, takeoff and land. Among the various parts of landing gear, axle is the most critical component where the loads (landing and ground loads) act on the axle first, then transferred to the structure. In this study stress and fatigue analysis of the axle is performed to meet the strength and life requirements. The modeling of the axle is done using UniGraphics (UG) software. Stress analysis is carried out using MSC Patran (pre-processing and post-processing)/Nastran (solver) for different landing loads (spin up, spring back, maximum vertical and drift) and ground handling loads (braking, taxing and turning). Stress analysis was carried out by both classical and FEM approaches and by comparing the results it was obvious that they were in correlation with one another. Fatigue analysis was also carried out for the axle using landing spectrum and ground handling spectrum to estimate the fatigue life. By the iteration process, the requirement of 10000 landings was satisfied.