A Simplified Flexible Multibody Dynamics for a Main Landing Gear with Flexible Leaf Spring

Abstract

The dynamics of multibody systems with deformable components has been a subject of interest in many different fields such as machine design and aerospace. Traditional rigid-flexible systems often take a lot of computer resources to get accurate results. Accuracy and efficiency of computation have been the focus of this research in satisfying the coupling of rigid body and flex body. The method is based on modal analysis and linear theory of elastodynamics: reduced modal datum was used to describe the elastic deformation which was a linear approximate of the flexible part. Then rigid-flexible multibody system was built and the highly nonlinearity of the mass matrix caused by the limited rotation of the deformation part was approximated using the linear theory of elastodynamics. The above methods were used to establish the drop system of the leaf spring type landing gear of a small UAV. Comparisons of the drop test and simulation were applied. Results show that the errors caused by the linear approximation are acceptable, and the simulation process is fast and stable.