Compliant Mechanism to replace a 2D Rotorcraft Landing Gear Mechanism, foreseen to be extended to the VGTM-based Morphing Wing

The main goal of this thesis report is to replace an existing 2D mechanism of a dynamic rotorcraft landing gear with a 2D compliant mechanism. The advantage of compliant mechanisms is that they reduce manufacturing and labor costs, along with maintenance costs. This is because a traditional mechanism contains numerous parts while a compliant mechanism does not. Some compliant mechanisms are made of plastics such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) which show material properties known as viscoelastic material properties. In this report the application of viscoelastic material properties into ANSYS is researched and applied for ABS. 4 different designs were investigated that have the potential to replace the dynamic rotorcraft landing gear. The 4 designs include a gripper like design, a four bar linkage design, a pantograph design, and a slider crank design. One of the main parameters studied during the design process was the rotorcraft landing gear slope (γ). The desired slope is 15°, the final design of the 4 bar linkage was 15.6°, the pantograph was 15°, and the slider crank design achieved 18.57°. The gripper design was utilized only for extending the landing gears parallel to the ground instead of perpendicular like the other designs. The 4 bar linkage design achieved the 15.6° value by being 3D printed with Polylactic acid (PLA) instead of ABS which was a less stiff but more elastic material. The report contains multiple types of methodology including FEA parametrization, mathematical modeling, and 3D printing testing. These methodologies were utilized to achieve optimal designs.