Effect on Airplane and Flexible Pavement Design of Varying Design Tire Pressure from 60 to 360 PSi

Landing gear weight, wheel well volume, and allowable traffic are compared for selected one, two, three, four, six, and eight wheel landing gears on 100,000 to 400,000 lb airplanes. The relative ground flotation capabilities of each gear type was determined by the CBR* method of flexible pavement analysis. Tire pressure was varied from 60 to 360 psi. For equal weight and/ or wheel well volume the gears with four, six, and eight tires per strut had approximately equal capabilities and were appreciably better than the one, two, and three wheel gears. Tire spacing rather than tire pressure had the most effect on flotation.