Adetailedaircraft tyre finite element modellanding safety assessment for hard

Tyres have an important role in landing gear systems upon aircraft landing and taxing on the ground. The performances of an aircraft tyre under varied load conditions are vital requirements for aircraft safety certification. This paper describes the development of a detailed finite element (FE) model of an aircraft test tyre in order to investigate its performance and assess its safety criteria. The work follows the findings from previous researches [1] [2] [3] [4] and focuses on the aircraft tyre safety assessment under various loading scenarios that were not yet studied. Initially, tyre inflation and static load simulations have been analyzed based on a full-scaled 3D detail LS-Dyna® FE model, replicating the actual geometry and the correlated material properties from industrial experimental data. The dynamic simulations that aim to duplicate tyre load upon aircraft landing scenarios have also been analyzed. Following the comments from aircraft tyre industrial data and guidelines[5] [6], the dynamic simulations have covered the tyre loading scenario from on-road taxing, normal (soft) landing, hard landing to crash landing under different aircraft landing weights. The stresses on tyre/wheel contact areas and on bead cords have been chosen as the safety criteria. The simulation results, analysis and comments have been discussed in great details. The modelling and simulations described in this paper aim to demonstrate the effective use of FE models for aircraft safety assessment, by studying the criteria of the tyre for load cases corresponding with testing and operational scenarios. The development of such predictive model would allow the manufacturers to assess tyre availability during the design process, and also add to the general drive towards the use of more virtual prototypes in an area traditionally reliant on experimental testing.