Numerical study of the tire hydroplaning behavior of aircraft on grooved concrete pavement

Abstract

Safe operation is crucial for civil aviation, and reducing the risk of aircraft tire hydroplaning is essential for civil aviation safety. Here, a new 3D aircraft tire-grooved (smooth) wet pavement model based on the coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) algorithm for the A320 aircraft was developed, and the effect of the ground contact area of an aircraft tire on the hydrodynamic pressure and support force of the tire under smooth and grooved wet pavement conditions was investigated. The results indicate that at the same taxiing speed, the ground contact area of the aircraft tire under the grooved wet-pavement condition is reduced by 19.8% compared to the smoothed wet-pavement condition, which is reduced by 6.2%. Similar patterns are observed for the hydrodynamic pressure and the critical hydrodynamic speed during landing and taking-off procedures, with upper and lower limited values obtained through the simulation results. Additionally, the predicted correction factor of the hydroplaning speed at different water film thicknesses is compared with those values obtained via the NASA formula. A comparison shows that the NASA formula underestimates the critical hydroplaning speed during the landing procedure. The corresponding correction factor will be less than 1.0 when the water film thickness reaches a critical value of 7.66 mm.