Safety of Hydraulic Systems

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Safety of Hydraulic Systems

Introduction

In this paper, we will present a discussion on the safety of the hydraulic systems in the aircraft, particularly in F/A-18. Hydraulic systems are still the most effective means to transmit power to the primary and secondary controls flight, landing gear, brakes, doors and ramps. However, there are significant efforts today to replace the use of hydraulic systems with electrical systems in some areas. Yet, hydraulic systems have maintained their dominant position mainly due to their low weight per unit of power. Even with the use of magnetic materials based on rare earth potential relationship weight of the hydraulic systems is significantly higher than electric, especially for power above 3 kW. The main requirements for the performance of the tasks assigned to any board system are low weight, low volume, low cost, high reliability and low maintenance. Hydraulic systems meet all these requirements and also have additional attractions.

We can see every time when a plane is created that they are undeniably bigger to carry more passengers. Therefore, the aircraft needs to control heavy and bulky mechanical parts. Among them, there are all the moving parts of an aircraft such as inverters pushed onto reactors, flight control surfaces for braking, the mechanism of the landing gear that it can retract or deploy, etc. From the cockpit, the pilot acts on those mechanical parts with buttons, levers or handles. If the plane is small, the pilot can use his strength to move these parts, but in the case of large aircraft, it is impossible to use human power for it. Indeed, because of the weight and volume of these parts, a man alone cannot move them with simple levers. So we created hydraulic systems to help the driver acting with hydraulic cylinders (i.e. with liquid) directly on all moving parts. Hence, we have a whole system of pipes containing fluid throughout the aircraft to operate on the correct order instantly.

In addition, to avoid any problems in this vital system, aircraft hydraulic systems are duplicated in order to neutralize the problem time to ensure landing. These hydraulic pumps have course and valves for controlling the fluid in the pipes but fluid reservoirs in case of leakage. The hydraulic system is inoperative while the engines are not running, so it exists on some aircraft auxiliary hydraulics powered by electricity to ensure braking ground.

Discussion

To operate the control systems of aircraft and engines, and other systems and components for aircraft, they use different types of energy with significant consumers of power. Depending on the type of energy used systems are hydraulic, gas and electric based. Each energy system has specific properties and has certain advantages. On modern airplanes of important hydraulic system, rapid growth and a sharp increase in capacity is due to the extensive use of hydraulic control surfaces (Jensen et al., 2000).

The hydraulic system provides control of the aircraft systems and mechanisms that determine the safety of the flight. Reliability, durability and ...