Wear analysis of finger locks with different design parameters for landing gear

The finger lock in the retractable actuator of the landing gear will wear during repeated unlocking and locking. Therefore, the effects of six parameters including the material of the finger lock, the length of the finger lock, the diameter of the finger lock, the number of petals, and the angle of the fingertip on the unlocking force after 500 unlocking cycles are researched. Archard wear theory was performed to obtain the unlocking force after wear and the influence of six key parameters on the unlocking force in this paper. Then, wear experiment was designed and the effectiveness of model and the influence of six parameters were verified. The results show that the chamfers of the finger lock was most worn, causing the value of the axial unlocking force during the transition phase to increase, but it has little effect on the maximum unlocking axial force. The material of the lock has little effect on the axial force; the length, diameter and the number of petals are inversely proportional to the axial force, and the angle of the fingertip is proportional to the axial force. Using Archard method can effectively calculate the finger pattern wear of locks.