Method for distributing braking torque between braked wheels fitted to at least one undercarriage of an aircraft
View Patent ↗A method for distributing braking energy between a group of the braked wheels numbered 1 . . . p and fitted to N undercarriages of an aircraft, each of the braked wheels having a brake furnished with a stack of discs to which a load is selectively applied so as to generate a torque for braking the wheel. Each brake is equipped with a unit for measuring a thickness of the stack of discs, and in which—the setting C j = E j E 1 + … + E p · N · C is an individual setting of braking to be generated by brake j, where p is the number of wheels concerned, C is the general setting of braking to be developed by the braked wheels of one and the same undercarriage, E j is the thickness of the stack of discs of the brake of wheel j, and C j the individual braking setting for wheel j. Each brake is controlled according to the individual braking setting thus determined.
1. A method of managing braking of an aircraft having a group of the braked wheels numbered 1 . . . p and fitted to N undercarriages of the aircraft, each of the braked wheels comprising a brake having a stack of discs to which a load is selectively applied so as to generate a torque for braking the wheel, each brake being equipped with means for measuring a thickness of the stack of discs, said method comprising:
controlling a braking computer for generating a general breaking setting C to be developed by the braked wheels of one undercarriage;
for each wheel j measuring a thickness E j of the stack of discs of the associated brake;
for each wheel j, estimating an individual braking setting
C
j
=
E
j
E
1
+
…
+
E
p
.
N
.
C
;
to be generated by the associated brake of wheel j when braked; and
controlling brake of wheel j according to the individual braking setting C j , so that braking energy is distributed among the brakes of the braked wheels of the group proportionally to the discs stacks thicknesses.
2. The method according to claim 1 , in which wheels (1 . . . p) are all fitted to the same undercarriage (N=1).
3. The method according to claim 1 , in which, for at least one of the brakes, the individual braking setting C j is corrected with a correction (ΔC j ) dependent on an initial temperature (T j ) of the stack of discs before braking is applied, so that the individual braking setting of the said brake is decreased if the initial temperature of the latter (C j ) is higher than a reference temperature.
4. The method according to claim 3 , in which the reference temperature is the mean of the temperatures of the other brakes.
5. The method according to claim 4 , in which the correction (ΔC j ) is equal to C j =k j ·N·C, where
k
j
=
-
1
T
m
(
T
j
-
T
refj
)
with
T
m
=
1
p
∑
i
=
1
p
T
i
and
T
refj
=
1
P
-
1
∑
i
≠
j
T
i
.
6. The method according to claim 1 , in which the correction is bounded.
7. The method according to claim 1 , in which the general braking setting is a braking torque setting.