Aircraft tyre wear

What is it about?

When a heavy aircraft touches down the runway, a buff of smoke is usually seen coming from the main landing gear tyres. This is because the tyres were stationary at touchdown moment while the aircraft's forward speed was high. Immediately after touchdown, the tyre rubber wears out, partly lost to the runway and partly vaporized as smoke. In this paper, we simulate the typical landing to find the amount of rubber wear, and then rotate the wheel before touchdown to find the effect of the pre-spinning wheel to reduce the tyre wear.

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Why is it important?

Aircraft landing smoke (tyre wear) effects the environment as pollution. Also, it has economical effect. For example, the airline companies are replacing or re-treading the tyres frequently which cost millions of dollar annually. Moreover, the rubber lost on the runway must be removed regularly to avoid soft runway which is not safe for the aircraft landing. In addition, consuming more rubber means more rubber factories (pollution), and consuming more rubber trees…. etc