Soil stress and deformation determination under a landing airplane on an unsurfaced airfield

• Published in: Journal of terramechanics 2003-10, Vol.40 (4), p.255-269
• Main Authors: Pytka, Jaroslaw, Tarkowski, Piotr, Da̧browski, Jaroslaw, Bartler, Szczepan, Kalinowski, Marek, Konstankiewicz, Krystyna, Pytka, Pawel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air transportation and traffic; Applied sciences; Buildings. Public works; Exact sciences and technology; Geotechnics; Ground, air and sea transportation, marine construction; Land airplanes; Landing; Soil mechanics. Rocks mechanics; Soil stress and deformation state; Soil–wheel interaction; Structure-soil interaction; Touchdown; Unsurfaced airfields
• ISSN: 0022-4898; 1879-1204
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jterra.2003.12.005

This paper presents a multidisciplinary approach to a problem of soil–wheel interaction during the landing of an airplane on a grass airfield, with terramechanical analysis of the forces acting between a wheel and the surface. The experiment on stress and deformation state in soil under a wheel on touchdown was performed in the field. The soil stress state (major stress S1, minor stresses S2 and S3, stress invariant in an octahedral system, MNS and OCTSS) was determined with the use of an SST (stress state transducer), which was installed at 15 cm depth. Soil deformation was determined with an inertial measuring system, integrated with the SST. These soil data were captured exactly at the moment touchdown. In the experiment, a four-passenger, STOL multirole airplane was used and pilots performed two landing patterns: normal landing and emergency landing (without propeller thrust).