Development of Semi-analytical Models for Aircraft Wheel Assembly Design
Résumé
This article is devoted to the development of a calculation macro-model for the sizing of aircraft wheel fasteners. By their design, airliners tires are too rigid to be mounted on the wheel like car or motorcycle tires. Therefore, it is necessary to design a wheel in two separate parts so as to plug the tire on a first half-wheel and then “close” the assembly with the second. Therefore, the two half-wheels must be held together. Inmost cases, a bolted joint plays this essential role. The aim of this work is to develop a methodology related to the generation of semi-analytical model representative of the assembly. The tool is designed with a local approach that models an angular wheel sector including the most solicited bolt. It makes possible to evaluate tensile and bending stresses in the bolt, taking into account the roundness effect of the wheel. The objective is to obtain results close to finite element 3D modeling but with a very limited computation time. To achieve this goal, the principle of this model is to represent all parts of the wheel by 1D axisymmetric elements such as plate and shell elements, beam, tube, and spring elements (to model the contact) ensuring a description close to the actual wheel. Contact between the two half-wheels is also taken into account in order to detect the location of any unsticking after application of external loads. Different cases will be simulated (inflation case, straight line, and cornering case). The mechanical strength of the most solicited bolt will be analyzed for these different configurations. The results in tensile and bending stresses will be observed at the screwlevel.Acomparison of the results from the proposed digital macro-model and the 3D digital simulations will be analyzed. The developed tool will be used in the early design phase which allows the design engineer to define the mechanical and geometric properties of the wheel and bolts to find the optimal assembly.