Efficient Driving Plan and Validation of Aircraft NLG Emergency Extension System via Mixture of Reliability Models and Test Bench

Abstract

The emergence extension system (a mechanical system) of nose landing gear (NLG) seriously influences the reliability, safety and airworthiness of civil aircrafts. To efficiently realize the NLG emergence extension, a promising driving plan of emergence extension is proposed in respect of the reliability sensitivity analyses with a mixture of models. The working principle, fault tree analysis and four reliability models are firstly discussed for NLG emergence extension. In respect of the mixture of models, the reliability sensitivity analyses of emergence extension are then performed under different flight speeds (270 Kts, 250 Kts, 220 Kts, and 180 Kts). We find dimpling torque and aerodynamic torques of forward and after doors are the top three failure factors and the start reliability is the most in emergence extension failures. Regarding the results, feasible driving plans of NLG emergence extension are developed by adjusting the aerodynamic torque of NLG forward door, and are validated by the aerodynamic torque experiment of forward door with regard to strut rotational angle under the flight speed 270 Kts. It is indicated that (1) the adverse torque generated by the new driving mechanism obviously reduces by about 24.8% from 1462.8 N·m to 1099.6 N·m, and the transmission ratio of aerodynamic torque (force) is greatly improved when the NLG strut is lowered near to 100°; (2) under different flight speeds (180 Kts, 220 Kts, 250 Kts, and 270 Kts), the new driving mechanism realizes the lower tasks of emergence extension which cannot be completed by the initial driving mechanism; and (3) the lowering time of the new driving mechanism shortens with the increasing flight speed. The proposed new driving mechanism is verified to be reliable for emergence extension of aircraft NLG besides normal extension and to be a promising feasible driving plan with high lowering reliability. The efforts of the paper provide an efficient driving mechanism for the design of NLG in civil and military aircrafts.