Aeroelastic analysis of wings with isotropic and orthotropic materials in compressible flow

Abstract

The aeroelastic analysis of a cropped delta wing in compressible flow is presented in this work. Tests using isotropic and orthotropic materials, as well as laminated composite materials, are performed, keeping the same geometry for each case and investigating the wing behavior using different dynamic pressures. A computational framework based in a staggered procedure with separated finite element codes for fluid and structural domains is used. Geometrically nonlinear effects are incorporated into the structural analysis employing a corotational formulation, while simple and efficient algorithms are adopted to deal with mesh motion and information transfer between fluid and structure, using non-matching meshes at the interface. The proposed framework is tested using the isotropic wing and comparing results obtained here with those obtained from other works. The limit-cycle oscillation, characterizing the isotropic wing behavior, is also obtained in simulations carried out on an orthotropic wing with a single layer, but larger displacements are observed. Finally, the aeroelastic analysis of a laminated composite wing is performed and a significantly different behavior with respect to previous cases is observed, taking into account that for some flow conditions the structural motion is damped, and for other flow conditions structural motion is amplified to levels where the fluid mesh became highly distorted.