A Novel Design and Structural Analysis of Spring Landing Gear for Unmanned Air Vehicles

Abstract

Aircraft are subjected to an impact load during landing. This situation becomes more important for unmanned aerial vehicles that are remotely controlled and must serve in extreme conditions. Because the landing gear should absorb this impact load as much as possible and prevent damage to the unmanned aerial vehicle body and its components. In this study, a landing gear design was developed for unmanned aerial vehicles that can absorb more impact load during landing. Numerical analyzes were performed to determine the fa-tigue life and the maximum impact load that the developed design could withstand. In addi-tion, a conventional landing gear was modeled and the results were compared. The properties of 7075-T6 Aluminum alloy were used as the landing gear material. As a result of the finite element analyzes made with Ansys software, it had been understood that the newly designed landing gear could absorb more energy than the conventional landing gear. It had also been determined that it could be used at values up to 3700N impact load

Keywords

• Landing gear
• 7075 Al alloy
• Stress analysis
• Fatigue analysis
• Finite element method

Thanks

The authors would like to thank Istanbul Technical University Information Technologies Directorate for permission the use of the software.

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