Mechanical Responses of Pavement under Aircrafts with Different Main Landing Gears

In order to provide a theoretical basis for the optimal design of aircraft and pavement, a finite element model of runway was established based on the elastic layered theory to analyze the mechanical responses caused by changing main landing gears. Two sets of aircrafts with the same loads level but different in main landing gear configurations were chosen. The simulation results show that the change of main landing gear configurations influences dramatically on mechanical responses in loading areas. In the condition that aircraft loads are equal, increasing of the total number of wheels on main landing gears will decrease vertical displacement peaks and tensile stresses on panel bottom, the difference of vertical displacement peaks is up to 13% and the difference of tensile stresses on panel bottom is up to 35%. When the spacing between main landing gears is small, displacement curves for the loading areas are gentle and strains in the loading areas are small, but response depth on soil base is large. The difference of strains is up to 12% and the difference of response depth on soil base is up to 14%. The change of the configurations has little effect on vertical displacements far away from loading areas.