Structures and Materials Commons^™

Aeroelastic Simulation Of Shape Adaptive Wing, Allan Alfred Kozich Iii

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Morphing wings provide aerodynamic qualities that normal fixed wings cannot, such as the ability to improve endurance yet maintain maneuverability, overcome strong gusts, vibrations, and shocks, and handle both ideal flight for both high and low speeds. A critical application of the new generation of morphing wings is the ability to overcome and affect the onset flutter, a self-excited oscillatory instability that has led to the destruction of aircrafts. This work investigates aeroelastic behavior and measurement of a meta-material structured "smart" wing and its attempt to delay the effect of flutter. The variable wing tip model is analyzed through finite …

Aeroelastic Analysis Of Small-Scale Aircraft, Kent Roberts

Master's Theses

The structural design of flight vehicles is a balancing act between maximizing loading capability while minimizing weight. An engineer must consider not only the classical static structural yielding failure of a vehicle, but a variety of ways in which structural deformations can in turn, affect the loading conditions driving those deformations. Lift redistribution, divergence, and flutter are exactly such dynamic aeroelastic phenomena that must be properly characterized during the design of a vehicle; to do otherwise is to risk catastrophe. Relevant within the university context is the design of small-scale aircraft for student projects and of particular consideration, the DBF …

Aeroelasticity Of Composite Plate Wings Using Hsdt And Higher-Order Fem, Justin A. Haught

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The aeroelasticity of composite wings is becoming an increasingly researched topic in aircraft design, as designers continue to replace aluminum alloy components with those made of composite materials because of their favorable strength-to-weight ratio, fatigue characteristics, and corrosion resistance. Additionally, the bending-torsion coupling exhibited by composite laminates readily allow for the aeroelastic optimization of an aerodynamic structure through the process of aeroelastic tailoring. Wings made of composites materials, however, are more vulnerable to shear deformation.

The objective of the present research is to study the divergence and flutter characteristics of composite plate wings using a higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) …

Structural Design Of Wing Twist For Pitch Control Of Joined Wing Sensor Craft, Fred A. Kimler Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigated two aspects of the aft wing structure of a joined wing SensorCraft. First, the efficacy of a novel approach for incorporating wing twist for pitch control was analyzed. This design involved adding a spanwise sliding joint into the wing structure at the lower aft spar of the vehicle's aft wing. Second, the joint section where the forward and aft wings connect and form the outboard wing was redesigned and analyzed to improve the load transmission between the wing spars. Using MSC.NASTRAN, linear and non-linear static analyses were performed to examine the efficiency of the wing twist sliding …

The Influence Of Structural Optimization On The Aeroelastic Properties Of A Vertical Tail, David G. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the influence of structural optimization parameters on the structural and aeroelastic behavior of a vertical tail. The outside geometry of the tail is assumed fixed. The objective of the optimization is to reduce the structural member sizes so that the overall weight of the tail is minimized. The influence that design loads, design constraints, design variable linking has on the optimal design is observed examining several design cases. The static aeroelastic properties a flutter speeds of the various design cases are then compared. The doublet lattice method is used to calculate the …

Finite Element Frequency Domain Solution Of Nonlinear Panel Flutter With Temperature Effects And Fatigue Life Analysis, David Yongxiang Xue

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A frequency domain solution method for nonlinear panel flutter with thermal effects using a consistent finite element formulation has been developed. The von Karman nonlinear strain-displacement relation is used to account for large deflections, the quasi-steady first-order piston theory is employed for aerodynamic loading and the quasi-steady thermal stress theory is applied for the thermal stresses with a given change of the temperature distribution, ΔΤ (x, y, z). The equation of motion under a combined thermal-aerodynamic loading can be mathematically separated into two equations and then solved in sequence: (1) thermal-aerodynamic postbuckling and (2) limit-cycle oscillation. The Newton-Raphson iteration technique …