Study Group contributors Maria Aguareles (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya)

Problem statement Shimmy is an oscillation in the landing gear of an aircraft that can occur during taxiing, take-off or landing. Traditional shimmy analysis considers the effect to be linear. The Study Group considered a simplified nonlinear model for shimmy and studied its linear stability, and its nonlinear behaviour numerically, and showed that it has supercritical Hopf bifurcations. These results are broadly in agreement with observations of shimmy in some circumstances, but a more complex model would need to cover effects that are neglected here