Landing Gear

Accurate analysis of aircraft landing gear requires the consideration of many factors, yet the necessity of quick design iteration is at odds with such a complex system. The complicated interaction of a large number of structural components makes the task of landing gear design and simulation particularly difficult. Various aspects of the mechanical system such as kinematics, contact, friction, damping, and others may need to be included in a single analysis.

SIMULIA products, including the Abaqus Unified FEA product suite, Multiphysics, simulation automation and optimization capabilities, and SLM products, provide realistic simulation solutions to these specific challenges. Abaqus allows many of the various analysis requirements of landing gear systems to be handled with a single analysis code. Complete pre- and postprocessing integrated with industry-leading solver technology for kinematic, modal, static, and dynamic analysis make our solutions the complete answer to landing gear analysis. In the early design phase, models can be constructed using substructures, beams, nodes, and connectors to quickly iterate on various parameters. When the design has taken shape, full-fidelity 3D simulations including all of the necessary mechanical properties can be performed.

Solution Capabilities

• Substructures (an improvement upon super elements) to allow for model reduction and still enable non-linear geometric simulation with stress results recovery
• Connectors to model joints, actuators, air springs, oleo struts, and all of the complex mechanical components of landing gear with simple abstractions
• State-of-the-art contact capabilities for modeling of joints when stress distributions strongly depend on the contact state
• The ability to transfer a preloaded model from Abaqus/Standard to Abaqus/Explicit for drop analysis, gear actuation, and other necessary simulations
• Complex material models for including tires, viscoelastic behavior of oil dampers, and other challenging aspects of landing gear design into your analysis
• Simulation process automation
• Design optimization