Shimmy Vibration Analysis of Aircraft Landing Gears

E. ESMAILZADEH
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada V8 W3P6

K. A. FARZANEH
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

(Received 13 August 1996; Final version 14 July 1997)

Abstract: Shimmy vibration is a very important type of motion in the landing gear system during either the
takeoff or landing of an aircraft. Energy input for this type of vibration is provided from the kinetic energy
of the forward motion of the aircraft. As a result, this energy initiates a self-excited type of vibration in the
wheels that may lead to instabilities. An attempt is made to develop a dynamical model for the aircraft nose
gear to investigate its transient response for the lateral deviations and shimmy angles. Variations of different
design parameters—namely, the energy absorption coefficient of the shimmy damper and the location of the
gravity center of the landing gear—are studied. Results are presented graphically to facilitate the investigation
of landing gear shimmy vibration.

Key Words: Aircraft landing gear, self-excited system, shimmy vibration, stability analysis

1. INTRODUCTION

Since the production of the first heavyweight class of airplanes, great attention has been paid
to the vibration of aircraft steering systems. One of the most important problems in designing
the landing gear is shimmy vibration (Conway, 1958; Curry, 1982). This oscillatory motion
is due to both the forces produced by runway surface irregularities and the nonuniformities
of the wheels. Shimmy vibration is the result of torsional oscillations of wheels about its
vertical axis and may be categorized as the self-excited vibration. The energy source for this
type of oscillation is produced from the forward motion of the airplane. If one assumes the
lateral wheel vibration to be harmonic, then this movement deforms the shock absorber as an
elastic bar. This deformation makes the additional external force on the shock absorber, which
produces the lateral acceleration of the elastic bar. Subsequently, the lateral acceleration
produces the frictional force between the wheel and the runway surface being perpendicular
to the plane of the wheel.
Frictional force between the wheel and runway makes the wheel tend to deviate in the
~-direction, which is the angle between the central plane of the wheel and the vertical plane
of motion, and therefore produces more deviation in theX direction. This indicates that the
vibration in the xp-direction would strongly depend on the deviated motion of the wheel in
the X-direction. In addition to this, the deviation due to the gyroscopic couple produced in

Journal of Vibration and Control, 5: 45-

45-56, 1999
© 1999 Sage Publications, Inc.

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Figure 1. Aircraft nose landing gear.

the wheel reduces the shimmy deviation angle, 0. The fundamental description given above
emphasizes that all degrees of freedom for the system are interrelated with one another.
Figure 1 shows the aircraft nose landing gear with its main parts being illustrated. Based
on the actual aircraft landing gear, the mathematical model is presented in Figure 2. The

connecting point of the oleo-pneumatic shock absorber (OPSA) to the fuselage is indicated
by (Q). The spring stiffness K and the viscous damper coefficient C represent the dynamic
properties of OPSA. The geometric center of the wheel assembly is shown by point (A ), while
its connecting point to the OPSA is indicated by (B).
The most important parameters in studying the vibration behavior of the wheel are the
distance L, the location of the mass center of the wheel (G), and its connecting point to the
shock absorber (B).
The energy absorption coefficient in the rotational shimmy damper is indicated by CS .
Because of the lateral motion of the wheel, the frictional force F is always perpendicular
to the plane of the wheels. The entity of this force is very complex, and until recently,
many investigators tried to describe its mathematical relationship with other parameters of the
system (Pacejka, 1973; Podgorski and Krauter, 1975). These studies have offered empirical
and explicit expressions for determining F as a function of system states. In this study, with
a new approach, this force is omitted from the equations of motion, and, therefore, there is

no need for those expressions.

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Figure 2. Mathematical model of aircraft nose wheel.

There are several reports of disastrous air accidents caused on the runway due to the
shimmy vibration. According to one report, the back wheel of a Fokker-100 plane destructed
when landing in the Geneva airport. Flight data, which have been recorded by the Aircraft
Integrated Data-recording System (AIDS), indicate the occurrence of a severe vibration just
before the accident.
Although many theoretical studies have been done on this phenomenon and various
methods of avoidance have been suggested, the complex entity of this phenomenon has yet
to be understood. Therefore, in conjunction to the theoretical investigation, a great deal of
field and experimental works are still in progress (Black, 1976; Grossman, 1980).

2. MATHEMATICAL MODEL

In the mathematical model, the mass of the fuselage when compared to that of the landing
gear is assumed to be quite large enough and therefore considered to be acting as a fixed
reference. In Figure 2, the point (Q), being the connecting point of the upper end of the
OPSA to the fuselage, has a motion with velocity V, which is the forward velocity of the
airplane.
Because of the limited hardness of the OPSA, the position of its connecting point to the
landing gear is not perfectly placed below (Q). Hence, the projection of this point, shown
by (B), has a variable distance with respect to the point (Q) and is represented by X. The
deviation angle of the wheel - that is, the shimmy angle - is shown by 0, while point (A) is
the geometric center of the wheel.
During the process of landing and because of the severe vibration, a lateral force F is
produced in between the runway surface and the wheels.
With these assumptions and using Newton’s second law of motion, the equations of
motion for the system are the following:

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with D = dldt and

Parameters m and I are the mass of the landing gear and the moment of inertia about its gravity
center, respectively
Further
equations may be derived from the lateral sliding motion of the wheel. This
equation simply shows that the path of point (A) is always perpendicular to the line (AB).

The three unknown variables., 0, X, and F, could be obtained from these three equations. By
substituting F from equation (1) into equation (2), one may obtain

and, in the rearranged form,

where

For small angle 0, the new variable 0 is defined as

Equation (5) may be rearranged as

or, alternatively, as

in which

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Furthermore, using equation (3) and for small angle 0, one may obtain

This could be written as

in which M is computed from

By substituting equation (12) into equation (9), one may obtain

which could be simplified as

Now let us defme the state vector

Using equations (9) and (15), one may have

in which the matrix ~A~ is defmed as

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Figure 3. Shimmy angle, 4J, time history (shimmy damper is absent).

Equation (17) must be solved numerically to determine the time response of the state
variables.

3. SIMULATION RESULTS ,

The derived state equations are solved numerically with the data given for a light class
airplane, the results of which are presented graphically Figure 1 shows the schematic view
of the nose landing gear. The mathematical model of the nose landing gear is presented
in Figure 2. As shown, various parameters that are essential in the shimmy response are
to be investigated. These are the shock strut elasticity with light structural damping, tire
compliance, frictional force between the tire and the runway surface, location of the center
of gravity of the landing gear, and aircraft forward speed.
Figures 3 and 4 are the time history of the shimmy angle and the transverse vibration
of the landing gear in the absence of damping, respectively. By implementing the shimmy
damper mechanism, a considerable reduction in the vibration level is achieved. Figures 5 and
6 show the time response of the shimmy angle and transverse vibration of the nose landing
gear in the presence of the shimmy damper.
Poor design of the landing gear system may introduce severe vibration and causes
instabilities. Variations of parameters are to be investigated in this study One of the most
important parameters is the moment of inertia of the landing gear about the shock strut axis.
According to the proposed model, the equations of motion for the system are third order. This
indicates that the closed-loop poles consist of one real pole and a pair of oscillatory poles,

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Figure 6. Transverse vibration, x, time response (shimmy damper is present).

which are complex conjugates. The real pole is found to be always stable, while the complex
poles may cause instabilities.
Figure 7 shows the locus of the real part of the oscillatory poles, known as critical poles,
with different values of the landing gear moment of inertia. An instability condition may
occur when the value of the moment of inertia is increased. This may be also evident from

Figure 8, in which the oscillatory poles may become unstable.

Another important parameter is the ratio of (a/b), which depends on the location of the
center of gravity Figure 9 shows that the instability would occur when the gravity center
approaches the tire axis.
The location of the gravity center is a designing parameter choice that is made to modify
the shimmy response of the landing gear. Moreover, the total length of the trail, L, is another
design parameter of major interest. Figures 10 and 11 show that the stability margin increases
for the case of a tall wheel axis.
The source of vibration energy is the aircraft momentum that results from the forward
speed. The changes of aircraft speed influence the damping factor, while the stable landing
gear remains stable during the entire speed variations. This is an important phenomenon
because during the landing and takeoff, the aircraft forward speed is always time varying.
Figure 12 shows the effect of forward speed on the critical poles.
Results presented graphically illustrate that there would be no simple design rule for the
aircraft landing gear; hence, designers must consider all the system parameters thoroughly to
obtain a reliable design. For a more complete analysis, the effect of tire lateral compliance,
slip, and landing gear torsional compliance near the longitudinal axis that give rise to
gyroscopic effects must also be taken into account (Van der Valk and Pacejka, 1993).

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4. CONCLUSIONS

The analysis of shimmy vibration is to be taken as an important step for the safe design of
landing gear. Moreover, detailed experimental data would be a major reliable reference in the
design stage, as in any other complex dynamical system. However, if experimental devices
are not available, then theoretical analyses and computer simulation would be useful tools to

predict and observe many real events.

Results presented graphically verify the assumptions made in deriving the mathematical
model and the governing equations of motion, which are a great asset when designing aircraft
nose landing gear.

REFERENCES

Black, J., 1976, "Realistic evaluation of landing gear shimmy stabilization by test and analyses," SAE Paper No. 760496.
Conway, H. J., 1958, Landing Gear Design, Chapman & Hall, London.
Currey, N. S., 1982, Landing Gear Design Handbook, Lockheed Georgia Company, Marietta.
Grossman, T. D., 1980, "F-15 landing gear shimmy, taxi and test and correlative analyses," SAE Paper No. 801239.
Pacejka, H. B., 1973, "Approximate dynamic shimmy response of pneumatic tires," Vehicle System Dynamics 2, 49-60.
Podgorski, W A. and Krauter, A. I., 1975, "The wheel shimmy problem: Its relationship to wheel and road irregularities,"
Vehicle System Dynamics 4, 9-41.
Van der Valk, R. and Pacejka, H. B., 1993, "An analyses of a civil aircraft main landing gear shimmy failure," Vehicle
System Dynamics 22, 97-121.

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