Effects of damping on the speed of increase and amplitude of limit cycle for an aircraft braking system subjected to mode-coupling instability

A nonlinear model of an aircraft braking system is presented and used to investigate the effects of damping on the stability in Chevillot et al. (Arch Appl Mech 78(12):949-963, 2008). It has been shown that the addition of damping into the equations of motion does not lead systematically to the stabilization of the system. In the case of a mode-coupling instability, there is indeed an optimal ratio between the modal damping coefficients of the two modes in coalescence, that maximize the stable area. But the stable area is not a sufficient criterion. In dynamics, the amplitude of the vibrations and the transient behavior characterized by the speed of increase of the oscillations are best indicators. In this paper, the same nonlinear model of the aircraft braking system is used to compute time-history responses by integration of the full set of the nonlinear dynamic equations. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effects of damping on the nonlinear dynamics of the brake. It is shown that damping may be very efficient to significantly reduce and slow down the increase of the friction-induced vibrations. But, in the same way as for the stability area, there exists a value of the damping ratio that optimizes the effects of damping.