Study of the wear process in an experimental simulation of a fuselage/runway rubbing contact

Abstract

In this work, the authors tackle the problem of laboratory simulation of frictional contact in wheels-up emergency landing conditions. To design a novel tribometer simulating the contact between an aircraft structure and a runway, one must carry two complementary main tasks: the understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms and the scaling up of the in-lab results to the scale of interest. The authors propose to progress on the first task by conducting exploratory work using existing resources. Their contribution consists of a multi-scale methodology to reconstruct the wear process in a tribological system within wheels-up emergency landing conditions. This could provide guidance for safer aircraft and runway design. The study falls within the framework of three-body tribology. The proposed multi-scale characterisation methodology is made up of four steps. After describing the whole tribological system, its mechanical response is measured and analysed. This measurement is complemented by surface observations and physicochemical analyses. Finally, all the measurements and observations are discussed to come across a phenomenological wear scenario that revealed friction and wear as system responses with the key role of the third body.