Design of a Helicopter Landing Sled Using Doe Techniques

This paper illustrates the benefits of utilizing Design of Experiments (DOE) techniques in designing parts and assemblies used in challenging environments, such as the aviation industry. Specifically, this study used such a method to optimize the design of landing gear for a Robinson R22-Alpha helicopter. To do so, a physical model of the caret in Ansys and the Full Factorial statistical model defined with Minitab were used. Such analysis allowed to explore the correlation between the geometrical and physical properties by using only a few experiments and to make the design data explicit. The implementation of DOE has the potential to maximize data processing capabilities by increasing productivity in many design applications that require large amounts of information.