FLUTTER SUPPRESSION OF AN ELASTICALLY SUPPORTED PLATE WITH ELECTRO-RHEOLOGICAL FLUID CORE UNDER YAWED SUPERSONIC FLOWS

Abstract

This paper investigates the active control of the supersonic flutter motion of an elastically supported rectangular sandwich plate, which has a tunable electrorheological (ER) fluid core and rests on a Winkler–Pasternak elastic foundation, subjected to an arbitrary flow of various yaw angles. The classical thin plate theory is adopted. The ER fluid core is modeled as a first order Kelvin–Voigt material, and the quasi-steady first order supersonic piston theory is employed for the aerodynamic loading. The generalized Fourier expansions in conjunction with Galerkin method are employed to formulate the governing equations in the state-space domain. The critical dynamic pressures at which unstable panel oscillations occur are obtained for a square sandwich plate, with or without an interacting soft/stiff elastic foundation, for selected applied electric field strengths and flow yaw angles. The Runge–Kutta method is then used to calculate the open-loop aeroelastic response of the system in various basic loading configurations. Subsequently, a sliding mode control (SMC) synthesis is set up to actively suppress the closed loop system response in yawed supersonic flight conditions with imposed excitations. The results demonstrate the performance, effectiveness, and insensitivity with respect to the spillover of the proposed SMC-based control system.