Crashworthiness Analysis on Multiple Styles of Skid Landing Gear

The skid landing gear is widely used in rotorcraft with advantages over wheeled landing gear. Crashworthiness is critical for protecting crews from injury in an emergency landing and landing gear plays a considerable important role in crashworthiness because it is the first structure hitting the ground. Hence the crashworthiness of four styles of skid landing gear with various thicknesses of the crossbeam or struts were numerically analyzed by using the finite element code LS-DYNA. The results show Bow style has the best comprehensive crashworthiness performance while the Strut style and Arc style have fair crashworthiness performance, but the Oct style has the largest weight, acceleration peak, and the lowest energy absorption ratio, which shows the worst crashworthiness. Also, further optimization with a tapered crossbeam design was conducted and evaluated, finding that the weight can be significantly reduced with the same level of crashworthiness.