Opening up a new track in aviation! Chinese scientists achieve new breakthrough in aviation tire technology!

A civil aircraft soars into the blue sky, it is inseparable from the aviation tires that can work normally under high speed, high load and high impact conditions. However, the manufacturing process of aviation tires is extremely complicated, and its core manufacturing technology has long been controlled by several foreign companies.

In order to break through key core technologies, Chinese scientists have opened up a new track, proposed a technical route for bionic synthetic rubber , and achieved important breakthroughs. ↓↓↓

my country's bionic synthetic rubber technology has achieved important breakthroughs

Aircraft tires are typical consumables. For a long time, my country's civil aircraft have mainly rented foreign aircraft tires. It is imperative to independently control the core technology of aircraft tires. According to reports, raw materials are the first step to restrict the development of my country's high-end aircraft tires. In 2022, my country's natural rubber production was about 740,000 tons, but consumption exceeded 6.6 million tons, with nearly 90% relying on imports. To achieve the goal of stable supply and large-scale industrial production, bionic synthetic rubber is the only way.

The Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the scientific research base of bionic synthetic rubber in China. After years of joint research, the scientific research team achieved an important breakthrough in bionic rubber synthesis technology this year by imitating the molecular structure and key chemical components of natural rubber. According to researchers, the key performance indicators of bionic synthetic rubber have reached the level of imported special-grade natural rubber. Yang Xiaoniu, director of the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: The successful research and development of bionic synthetic rubber marks that we have transformed natural rubber from an agricultural product into an industrial product and are no longer dependent on imports. We can dynamically adjust production according to market demand. Relying on the large science center to control the performance of aviation tires

Aviation tires are directly related to the safety of aircraft. They must be able to withstand extreme temperatures ranging from -40 degrees Celsius to +70 degrees Celsius, and withstand tens of tons of impact force at the moment of landing. Therefore, aviation tire performance testing is very critical. Only after conducting hundreds to thousands of extreme tests on tires can researchers understand the maximum service life of tires.

The Aviation Tire Science Center is currently the most advanced research facility for flight takeoff and landing dynamics in China. Its core is a series of large devices for flight takeoff and landing dynamics, mainly including aviation tire high-acceleration test benches, tire pavement environment test benches, aircraft landing gear vibration test benches and other large devices. Relying on the large science center, researchers can check the performance of aviation tires. Yang Xiaoniu, director of the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences: The high-acceleration test bench is the first equipment to be debugged and tested. Through it, we can know the reliability, life and other performance of aviation tires under all-weather use. After repeated tests, the bionic synthetic rubber aviation tires currently developed by Chinese scientists and sent here can achieve a service life of more than 35% higher than that of aviation tires made of natural rubber under extreme working conditions.

Independently developed digital tire industry software to simultaneously achieve tire structure design and performance prediction

Researchers introduced that tires are divided into more than a dozen parts, each with different firmness, wear resistance, load-bearing capacity, etc. In the design, it is necessary to develop and design different parts of aviation tires, and accurately predict their service life.

To this end, researchers have independently developed a new set of digital tire industrial software to simultaneously achieve tire structure design and performance prediction. In the software, various data, stress conditions and other elements of the tire are clearly visible, which not only enables design at sub-millimeter spatial resolution, but also greatly shortens the original process and development time. Relying on the "Bionic Synthetic Rubber" project, the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has completed the full chain connection and application verification of aviation tire localization technology, achieved two original technological breakthroughs from "0" to "1" in bionic synthetic rubber and digital tire industrial software, and mastered 41 core technologies , thus enabling China to embark on an innovation path in the aviation tire industry that is completely different from that of Western countries.

Planning and production

Source: CCTV News WeChat Official Account

Editor: Wang Mengru