Flutter improvement of a thin walled wing-engine system by applying curvilinear fiber path

Abstract

In the present study, the aeroelastic behavior of a wing-engine system modeled as composite Thin Walled Beam (TWB) with curvilinear fiber path is investigated. The variable stiffness is acquired by constructing laminates of TWB with curvilinear fibers having prescribed paths. In order to account the effect of chordwise and spanwise locations, mass, and thrust force of engine on the aeroelastic characteristics of TWB, the novel governing equations of motion are obtained using Hamilton's variational principle. The paper aims to exploit desirable fiber paths with improved aeroelastic properties for different wing-engine configuration. Ritz based solution methodology is employed to solve the equations with coupled incompressible unsteady aerodynamic model based on Wagner's function. Numerical simulation results which conform to previously published literatures are presented for validation purposes. Although different curvilinear fiber paths can be introduced to enhance flutter instabilities for each wing-engine configurations, there exists an ideal placement of engine on the wing considering only the engine mass, and the engine mass and thrust force, simultaneously. A comprehensive insight is provided over the effect of parameters such as the lamination fiber path and the effect of engine positions with different mass and thrust values on the flutter speed and frequency.