Vibration control studies of a high-aspect-ratio wing with geometric nonlinearity

Abstract

Many challenges of vibration problems due to structure nonlinearity are growing while high-aspect-ratio wings are being widely used. Feasible vibration control method is an effective way to decrease such challenges. At the beginning, a new high-aspect-ratio flexible wing model with swept-back angle and control surface was designed and manufactured. Numerical simulation was employed to find basic dynamic characteristics of the wing. Ground experiments could provide vibration test results of this wing. The numerical method of computational flutter velocity of the wing including geometric nonlinearity was applied to study this wing. Then the open-loop flutter dynamic pressure and the closed-loop flutter speed were compared, it is found that the control law designed by linear quadratic Gaussian theory can increase the flutter speed of the present geometric nonlinear wing model. The computational results of flutter vibration show that the geometric nonlinear flutter speed is lower than the linear flutter speed, and the change in torsional mode is the critical reason for the decrease in flutter speed. Both numerical and experimental method proposed in this paper could be applied to predict the approximate flutter effect of such complex elastic high-aspect-ratio wing via structural nonlinearity.