The Random Heave-pitch Response of Aircraft to Runway Roughness

Abstract

The need to establish reliable methods of predicting the response of aircraft during taxying on rough runways and the associated dynamic loads and fatigue damage has led to numerous theoretical and experimental investigations of this problem. The present paper is a development of the study reported in ref. (1) which considered the random response of a flexible aircraft to forces transmitted through thei main undercarriage. The purpose of this paper is to apply power spectral techniques to the computation of the response of a rigid aircraft in heave and pitch to runway roughness, taking account of non-linearities in damping in the main and nose undercarriage.