A Numerical-Experimental Method for Drop Impact Analysis of Composite Landing Gear

The special material performance, manufacturing process, machining behavior, and operating condition of composite materials cause uncertainties to inevitably appear in the mechanical properties of composite structures. Therefore, variability in mechanical properties must be considered in a mechanical response analysis of composite structures. A method is proposed in this paper to predict the dynamic performance of composite landing gear with uncertainties using experimental modal analysis data and nonlinear static test data. In this method, the nonlinear dynamic model of the composite landing gear is divided into two parts, the linear and the nonlinear parts. An experimental modal analysis is employed to predict the linear parameters with a frequency response function, and the nonlinear parameters caused by large deflection are identified by a nonlinear static test with the nonlinear least squares method. To check the accuracy and practicability of the method, it is applied to drop impact simulations and tests of composite landing gear. The results of the simulations are in good agreement with the test results, which shows that the proposed method is perfectly suited for the dynamic analysis of composite landing gear.