scholarly journals Parametric whirl flutter study using different modelling approaches

Author(s):  
Christopher Koch

AbstractThis paper demonstrates the importance of assessing the whirl flutter stability of propeller configurations with a detailed aeroelastic model instead of local pylon models. Especially with the growing use of electric motors for propulsion in air taxis and commuter aircraft whirl flutter becomes an important mode of instability. These configurations often include propeller which are powered by lightweight electric motors and located at remote locations, e.g. the wing tip. This gives rise to an aeroelastic instability called whirl flutter, involving the gyroscopic whirl modes of the engine. The driving parameters for this instability are the dynamics of the mounting structure. Using a generic whirl flutter model of a propeller at the tip of a lifting surface, parameter studies on the flutter stability are carried out. The aeroelastic model consists of a dynamic MSC.Nastran beam model coupled with the unsteady ZAERO ZONA6 aerodynamic model and strip theory for the propeller aerodynamics. The parameter studies focus on the influence of different substructures (ranging from local engine mount stiffness to global aircraft dynamics) on the aeroelastic stability of the propeller. The results show a strong influence of the level of detail of the aeroelastic model on the flutter behaviour. The coupling with the lifting surface is of major importance, as it can stabilise the whirl flutter mode. Including wing unsteady aerodynamics into the analysis can also change the whirl flutter behaviour. This stresses the importance of including whirl flutter in the aeroelastic stability analysis on aircraft level.

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 325-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang Chuan Xie ◽  
Jia Zhen Leng ◽  
Chao Yang

A composite high-aspect-ratio wing of a high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) aircraft was modeled with FEM by MSC/NASTRAN, and the nonlinear static equilibrium state is calculated under design load with follower force effect, but without load redistribution. Assuming the little vibration amplitude of the wing around the static equilibrium state, the system is linearized and the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the deformed structure are obtained. Planar doublet lattice method is used to calculate unsteady aerodynamics in frequency domain ignoring the bending effect of the deflected wing. And then, the aeroelastic stability analysis of the system under a given load condition is successively carried out. Comparing with the linear results, the nonlinear displacement of the wing tip is higher. The results indicate that the critical nonlinear flutter is of the flap/chordwise bending type because of the chordwise bending having quite a large torsion component, with low critical speed and slowly growing damping, which dose not appear in the linear analysis. Furthermore, it is shown that the variation of the nonlinear flutter speed depends on the scale of the load and on the chordwise bending frequency. The research work indicates that, for the very flexible HALE aircraft, the nonlinear aeroelastic stability is very important, and should be considered in the design progress. Using present FEM software as the structure solver (e.g. MSC/NASTRAN), and the unsteady aerodynamic code, the nonlinear aeroelastic stability margin of a complex system other than a simple beam model can be determined.


2012 ◽  
Vol 225 ◽  
pp. 18-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harijono Djojodihardjo ◽  
Alif Syamim Syazwan Ramli ◽  
Surjatin Wiriadidjaja

The present work is focused on the unsteady aerodynamics of bio-inspired flapping wing to produce lift and thrust for hovering and forward flight. A generic approach is followed to understand and mimic the mechanism and kinematics of ornithopter by considering the motion of a three-dimensional rigid thin wing in flapping and pitching motion, using strip theory and two-dimensional unsteady aerodynamics for idealized wing in pitching and flapping oscillations with phase lag. Parametric study is carried out to obtain the lift, drag, and thrust characteristics within a cycle for assessing the plausibility of the aerodynamic model, and for the synthesis of a Flapping Wing MAV model with simplified mechanism. Other important parameters such as flapping frequency and wing geometry are considered. Results are assessed in comparison with the existing theoretical results.


2014 ◽  
Vol 629 ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Harijono Djojodihardjo ◽  
Muhammad Anas Abd Bari ◽  
Azmin Shakrine Mohd Rafie ◽  
Surjatin Wiriadidjaja

<p>The basis of this work was to understand the generation of lift and thrust of a flapping bi-wing ornithopter, which is influenced by its geometrical, dynamic, kinematic and aerodynamic features by following a generic approach in order to identify and mimic the mechanisms. As further development of earlier work, three-dimensional rigid thin wing is considered in flapping and pitching motion using strip theory and two-dimensional unsteady aerodynamics for idealized wing in pitching and flapping oscillations with phase lag. Later, parametric study is carried out to attain a complete cycle’s lift and thrust physical characteristics for evaluating the plausibility of the aerodynamic model and for the synthesis of an ornithopter model with simplified mechanism. Further investigation is conducted to identify individual contribution of generic motion towards the flight forces. Results are assessed in comparison with existing theoretical and experimental results as appropriate.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linpeng Wang ◽  
Yuting Dai ◽  
Chao Yang

Dynamic load due to gust for helicopter rotors directly affects the structural stress and flight performance. In case of gust, it may cause the loss of trust force or the increase of deflection for rotors. In current work, an effective coupled aeroelastic model based on a medium-deflection beam theory and a nonlinear unsteady aerodynamic model in the time domain were constructed. Three types of gust in vertical direction were added in the model. The dynamic response and structural load for helicopter rotors under three types of gust were calculated, respectively. Results indicated that when rotors suffer a gust in hover at downward direction, the thrust force on rotor disk would decrease significantly when the gust amplitude increases, which should be paid attention in the design. Among the three gust types with the same gust strength, the maximum instantaneous shear force due to impulse shape gust is the largest. When the rotors suffer a gust in a forward flight, the shear force at the root of rotors would increase with the gust strength first but then it decreases. More attention should be paid to the decrease of thrust force and the increase of structural load in a forward flight.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keisuke Otsuka ◽  
Shuonan Dong ◽  
Kanjuro Makihara

Abstract Future aircraft have a high aspect ratio wing (HARW). The low induced drag of the wing can reduce fuel consumption, which enables eco-friendly flight. HARW cannot be designed by using conventional linear aeroelastic analysis methods because it undergoes very flexible motion. Although absolute nodal coordinate formulations (ANCF) have been widely used for analyzing various flexible structures, their application to HAWR is limited because the derivation of the ANCF elastic force for wing cross section is difficult. In this paper, we first describe three ANCF-based beam models that address the difficulty. The three models have different characteristics. Second, an aeroelastic coupling between the beam models and a medium-fidelity aerodynamic model based on unsteady vortex lattice method (UVLM) is briefly explained. Especially, the advantage of ANCF in the aeroelastic coupling is emphasized. Finally, we newly compare the three ANCF-based models in structural and aeroelastic analyses. From the viewpoint of the convergence performance and calculation time, we found the best ANCF-based beam model among the three models in static structural and aeroelastic analyses, while the three models have comparable performances in dynamic structural and aeroelastic analyses. These findings contribute to the development of aeroelastic analysis framework based on ANCF and the design of next-generation aircraft wings.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaqin Huang ◽  
Xianghua Huang ◽  
Tianhong Zhang

AbstractIn the simulation of engine-propeller integrated control system for a turboprop aircraft, a real-time propeller model with high-accuracy is required. A study is conducted to compare the real-time and precision performance of propeller models based on strip theory and lifting surface theory. The emphasis in modeling by strip theory is focused on three points as follows: First, FLUENT is adopted to calculate the lift and drag coefficients of the propeller. Next, a method to calculate the induced velocity which occurs in the ground rig test is presented. Finally, an approximate method is proposed to obtain the downwash angle of the propeller when the conventional algorithm has no solution. An advanced approximation of the velocities induced by helical horseshoe vortices is applied in the model based on lifting surface theory. This approximate method will reduce computing time and remain good accuracy. Comparison between the two modeling techniques shows that the model based on strip theory which owns more advantage on both real-time and high-accuracy can meet the requirement.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Sina ◽  
T. Farsadi ◽  
H. Haddadpour

In this study, the aeroelastic stability and response of an aircraft swept composite wing in subsonic compressible flow are investigated. The composite wing was modeled as an anisotropic thin-walled composite beam with the circumferentially asymmetric stiffness structural configuration to establish proper coupling between bending and torsion. Also, the structural model consists of a number of nonclassical effects, such as transverse shear, material anisotropy, warping inhibition, nonuniform torsional model, and rotary inertia. The finite state form of the unsteady aerodynamic loads have been modeled based on the indicial aerodynamic theory and strip theory in the subsonic compressible flow. Novel Mach dependent exponential approximations of the indicial aerodynamic functions have been developed. The extended Galerkin’s method was used to construct the mass, stiffness, and damping matrices of the nonconservative aeroelastic system. Eigen analysis of the system was performed to obtain the aeroelastic instability (divergence and flutter) boundaries. Also, solving the equations of motion in the time domain leads to the aeroelastic response of wing in different flight speeds. The obtained results are compared with the available results in the literature, which reveals an excellent agreement. The numerical results obtained in this article seek to clarify the effects of geometrical and material couplings and flight Mach number on the aeroelastic instability and response of composite wings in subsonic compressible flow.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Gerdes ◽  
Hugh A. Bruck ◽  
Satyandra K. Gupta

Flapping-wing flight is a challenging system integration problem for designers due to tight coupling between propulsion and flexible wing subsystems with variable kinematics. High fidelity models that capture all the subsystem interactions are computationally expensive and too complex for design space exploration and optimization studies. A combination of simplified modeling and validation with experimental data offers a more tractable approach to system design and integration, which maintains acceptable accuracy. However, experimental data on flapping-wing aerial vehicles which are collected in a static laboratory test or a wind tunnel test are limited because of the rigid mounting of the vehicle, which alters the natural body response to flapping forces generated. In this study, a flapping-wing aerial vehicle is instrumented to provide in-flight data collection that is unhindered by rigid mounting strategies. The sensor suite includes measurements of attitude, heading, altitude, airspeed, position, wing angle, and voltage and current supplied to the drive motors. This in-flight data are used to setup a modified strip theory aerodynamic model with physically realistic flight conditions. A coupled model that predicts wing motions is then constructed by combining the aerodynamic model with a model of flexible wing twist dynamics and enforcing motor torque and speed bandwidth constraints. Finally, the results of experimental testing are compared to the coupled modeling framework to establish the effectiveness of the proposed approach for improving predictive accuracy by reducing errors in wing motion specification.


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