Design and Validation of a Passive Electromagnetic Damper for Aircraft Landing Gear

Aircraft nose landing gear shimmy is a self-excited instability that threatens ground handling safety and structural reliability. To address the limitations of conventional hydraulic and magnetorheological dampers, this paper presents a passive electromagnetic damper integrated into a nose wheel steering actuator platform. An analytical damping torque model is established based on electromagnetic induction and the skin effect, clarifying the inherent dependence of damping behavior on air-gap length and stator disk material properties. The proposed damper inherently delivers high damping at low shimmy velocities while exhibiting natural attenuation at higher speeds, which is beneficial for balancing shimmy suppression and steering performance. An electromagnetic–thermal coupled finite element model is developed to evaluate damping characteristics and temperature rise, and the simulation results are validated through prototype experiments. The measured equivalent damping coefficients meet shimmy suppression requirements, demonstrating the engineering feasibility of the proposed solution.