Lateral stability of a typical nose landing gear using torsional magneto-rheological (MR) damper

Aircraft landing gears are subjected to a wide range of excitation conditions, which result in conflicting damping requirements. A novel solution to this problem is to implement semi-active damping using magnetorheological (MR) fluids. In the present study, the shimmy model is developed based on the formulation of G. X. Li, to study the self-induced dynamic instability at the critical forward taxiing velocity. The effect of various parameters on the shimmy behaviour is also studied. The study has been performed to postpone the dynamic instability by introducing MR fluid based damper as a semi-active device.