Weak links design for the main landing gear leg mount

Abstract

The paper presents an overview of the main strength requirements to the typical civil aircraft landing gear design. Elements of the main landing gear leg mount on the airframe were considered in more detail. In the mount points, shear bolts called the ”weak links” are usually installed in order to prevent transferring the dangerous loads during rough landing to the critical airframe sections. Next, calculations of the typical “weak link” effecting the shear were compared by two methods. Analytical static calculation showed the shear force value being lower than the dynamic calculation by the finite element method, which indicates the need for additional research to identify true value of the shear force in the weak link section during the aircraft rough landing.