Aeroelastic analysis of a wing with freeplay in the subsonic/transonic regions

Abstract

An efficient aeroelastic analysis where both aerodynamic and structural nonlinearities are considered is performed. The analysis is based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural-dynamics (CSD) techniques in the time domain. Moving shock wave on the lifting surface, which is the aerodynamic nonlinearity in this study, is taken into account using the transonic small disturbance (TSD) equation. Freeplay, which is the local structural nonlinearity, is,considered in the modal coordinate using fictitious mass method. The aeroelastic response results of a wing with freeplay are presented in the subsonic and transonic regions. Also, the effects of an airfoil thickness on the aeroelastic responses are investigated.