Influence of damping characteristics to landing gear shimmy

A linear shimmy analysis model was used, which includes the elasticity of strut, the elasticity of damper linkage system, tire deflection, structure weight, vertical loads and wheel gyroscopic couple. With the method of sensitivity analysis, research on tire-yaw shimmy and structural-torsion shimmy was made separately. The three key landing gear structural parameters including trail, bending stiffness and torsional stiffness of damper linkage on aircraft wheel shimmy were investigated thoroughly. The investigation took the coupling effects among different parameters into consideration and calculated the sensitivity of damping to parameters' variety, and the effects of damping characteristics to shimmy was attained. The results supply a new idea for the design of aircraft and for the safe maintenance of operational ones to prevent the occurrence of shimmy.