Shimmy oscillations are undesired vibrations in aircraft landing gears. In this chapter, the onset of shimmy vibrations, marked by Hopf bifurcations, is investigated in the parameter space of high-fidelity, flexible multibody landing gear models. Such a bifurcation analysis is pe
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Shimmy oscillations are undesired vibrations in aircraft landing gears. In this chapter, the onset of shimmy vibrations, marked by Hopf bifurcations, is investigated in the parameter space of high-fidelity, flexible multibody landing gear models. Such a bifurcation analysis is performed by combining the Virtual.Lab Motion multibody solver with the numerical continuation software AUTO. The resulting quasi-2-parameter bifurcation diagrams, involving aircraft velocity and normal load, are verified using conventional time-simulation methods and are shown to be computationally more efficient. A sensitivity study reveals the influence of design parameters, such as the shimmy damping coefficient, mechanical trail, and steering actuator stiffness, on the occurrence of shimmy.
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