Abstract
The goal of developing aircraft that are greener, safer and cheaper can only be maintained through significant innovations in aircraft design. An integrated multidisciplinary design approach can lead to an increase in the performance of future derivative aircraft. Advanced aerodynamics and structural design technologies can be achieved by both passive and active suppression of aeroelastic instabilities. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, the EU-funded project Flutter Free Flight Envelope Expansion for Economical Performance Improvement is developing an unmanned aerial vehicle with a high-aspect-ratio-wing and clearly defined flutter characteristics. The aircraft is used as an experimental test platform. The scope of this work is the investigation of the aeroelastic behaviour of the aircraft and the determination of its flutter limits. The modeling of unsteady aerodynamics is performed by means of the small disturbance CFD approach that provides higher fidelity compared to conventional linear-potential-theory-based methods. The CFD-based and the linear-potential-theory-based results are compared and discussed. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the flutter behaviour to the geometric level of detail of the CFD model is evaluated.
Highlights
The success of aircraft manufacturers depends on the continuous improvement of the efficiency and the reduction of the aircraft operating costs
The small disturbance CFD (SD-CFD)-based flutter analysis is performed yielding two aeroelastic modes that become unstable in the speed range of interest
The focus of this work is on the application of SD-CFD for the modelling of unsteady aerodynamic loads
Summary
The success of aircraft manufacturers depends on the continuous improvement of the efficiency and the reduction of the aircraft operating costs These tasks can be fulfilled today by incremental enhancements. It is characterized by the fact that aeroelastic and flight control aspects are taken into account at an early design stage This strategy may help to overcome existing limitations in incremental design refinements by expanding the design space. Novel multidisciplinary methods and tools for aeroelastic design and active control are developed and validated on three different wing configurations with clearly defined structural and aeroelastic properties. In the context of this work the method is used for the CFD-based computation of the generalized aerodynamic forces for use in conventional linear flutter analysis. The influence of the actuator fairing mounted under the wing on the flutter limit is analysed
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