Aircrafts On-Ground Dynamics Models and Simulation Software: State-of-the-Art

The aircraft is a means of transportation that operates mainly in the air; however, it starts and ends its journey on the ground. Due to the aircraft’s structural complexity, simulation tools are used to understand and to predict its behavior in its movements on the ground. Simulation tools allow adjusting the observation parameters to gather a greater amount of data than real tests and explore interactions of the aircraft and their individual components with external objects such as pavement imperfections. This review aims to collect information on how to simulate the aircraft interaction with traffic-dependent energy harvesting systems. The specifications and framework to be met by a conceptual design are explored. The different configurations for simulating the aircraft configuration result in the selection of the two-mass-spring-damper model. For the components, especially the landing gear, a deployable element for on-ground movements, several existing models capable of translating the tire are also presented, resulting in a selection of point-contact, Fiala and Unified semi-empirical models. It is verified which software can address the proposed simulation, such as GearSim from SDI-Engineering and Matlab/Simulink/Simscape Multibody from MathWorks