Development of a State-Space Aeroelastic Model of a Flexible T-Tail Aircraft for Flutter Analysis

<p>Flutter prediction is an important part of the preliminary design process of any new aircraft. Current analysis methods include coupled fluid structure interaction codes and doublet lattice panel codes. The computation resources and time required for CFD solutions makes them unattractive for preliminary design and doublet lattice models require considerable pre and post processing to provide satisfactory results. Thus, a process for developing an analytical model to facilitate rapid design changes and the implementation of active control systems is the main motivation of this thesis. An analytical model is developed by first deriving the equations of motion of the structure for unforced vibration. Then the generalized aerodynamic forcing functions for incompressible, compressible subsonic, and supersonic flow are derived. Next, Roger’s Approximation is used to form a state-space model that describes the forced vibration of the system. The results of the normal mode calculations show that the process used to model the T-tail can accurately predict the unforced vibrational characteristics of the system. The flutter results show that the process developed in this thesis yields a conservative estimation of the flutter dynamic pressure while still capturing the behavior of the transonic dip.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis - Open Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Aerospace Engineering

Year

2020

Author dc:creator

• Downs, Patrick S.

• aeroelasticity
• T-tail
• aircraft
• flutter
• Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics
• Aerospace Engineering

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.erau.edu/edt/525

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.erau.edu:edt-1525