Failure Analysis of Nose Landing Gear Axle

• Main Author: DODY KURNIAWAN, MUHAMMAD
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik (Rekayasa, enjinering dan kegiatan berkaitan)
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/41630
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

An aircraft had experienced an accident and its nose landing gear and some other components were crushed. The left and right axles were found broken. To determine the loads that caused the axle to break a stress analysis was used and in addition the material was also metallurgically observed. The load could be calculated using the following data, there were: 1. Type and size of fracture. 2. Dimension of component. 3. Strength of material. It was found that the surface hardness of the axle is harder than the interior. The heat treatment that has been experienced by the axle was quenching and tempering. The hardness differential is due to that the different in cooling rate between surface and the interior. The interior zone has experienced longer cooling time than the surface, hence the carbon atom diffused outward to form carbide. On surface the carbon atoms were trapped and forming a martensite phase. From the stress analysis with mechanical classic method it is found that the amount of load on nose landing gear axle was exceeding the static force that can actually be accepted. The load is bigger than the aircraft weight itself, therefore it is concluded that during landing the aircraft nose landing gear was touching the runway in the first instance.