Evaluation of a Landing Gear Semi-active Control System for Complete Aircraft Landing

This paper deals with the simulation of landing gear semi-active control for a small trainer aircraft in a multibody framework. The behavior of single passive landing gear drop test simulation models and of a complete aircraft landing simulation model, developed and implemented in the commercial multibody code ADAMS in previous works, is compared to the that of analogous models equipped with semiactive shock absorber controllers. The control strategy and the controller tuning and sensitivity tests are briefly outlined and the results of its application to the landing gears is presented. The reduction in peak vertical attachment load values for the landing gear drop tests ranges from 5% to 35%, depending on the test conditions, and in the complete aircraft landing simulation, it is in the order of 5% to 20%, once again depending on the particular landing configuration. Comparisons between the drop tests and complete landing simulations in corresponding conditions are made, and the significant sensitivity tests are repeated on the complete aircraft model.