The relationship between stiffness distribution and aeroelastic performance for a beam-frame model and a3-D model is investigated based on aeroelastic optimization of global stiffness design for high-aspect-ratio wings.The sensitivity information of wing spanwise stiffness distribution with respect to the twist angle at wing tip,the vertical displacement at wing tip,and the flutter speed are obtained using a sensitivity method for both models.Then the relationship between stiffness distribution and aeroelastic performance is summarized to guide the design procedure.By using the genetic/sensitivity-based hybrid algorithm,an optimal solution satisfying the strength,aeroelastic and manufacturing constraints is obtained.It is found that the summarized guidance is well consistent with the optimal solution,thus providing a valuable design advice with efficiency.The study also shows that the aeroelastic-optimization-based global stiffness design procedure can obtain the optimal solution under multiple constraints with high efficiency and precision,thereby having a strong application value in engineering.
Uncertainties denote the operators which describe data error, numerical error and model error in the mathematical methods. The study of aeroelasticity with uncertainty embedded in the subsystems, such as the uncertainty in the modeling of structures and aerodynamics, has been a hot topic in the last decades. In this paper, advances of the analysis and design in aeroelasticity with uncertainty are summarized in detail. According to the non-probabilistic or probabilistic uncer- tainty, the developments of theories, methods and experiments with application to both robust and probabilistic aeroelasticity analysis are presented, respectively. In addition, the advances in aeroelastic design considering either probabilistic or non-probabilistic uncertainties are introduced along with aeroelastic analysis. This review focuses on the robust aeroelasticity study based on the structured singular value method, namely the ~t method. It covers the numerical calculation algo- rithm of the structured singular value, uncertainty model construction, robust aeroelastic stability analysis algorithms, uncertainty level verification, and robust flutter boundary prediction in the flight test, etc. The key results and conclusions are explored. Finally, several promising problems on aeroelasticity with uncertainty are proposed for future investigation.
An aeroelastic two-level optimization methodology for preliminary design of wing struc- tures is presented, in which the parameters for structural layout and sizes are taken as design vari- ables in the first-level optimization, and robust constraints in conjunction with conventional aeroelastic constraints are considered in the second-level optimization. A low-order panel method is used for aerodynamic analysis in the first-level optimization, and a high-order panel method is employed in the second-level optimization. It is concluded that the design of the abovementioned structural parameters of a wing can be improved using the present method with high efficiency. An improvement is seen in aeroelastic performance of the wing obtained with the present method when compared to the initial wing. Since these optimized structures are obtained after consideration of aerodynamic and structural uncertainties, they are well suited to encounter these uncertainties when they occur in reality.
A theoretical nonlinear aeroelastic response analysis for a flexible high-aspect ratio wing excited by harmonic gust load is presented along with a companion wind tunnel test. A multidisci- plinary coupled numerical calculation is developed to simulate the flexible model wing undergoing gust load in the time domain via discrete nonlinear finite element structural dynamic analysis and nonplanar unsteady vortex lattice aerodynamic computation. A dynamic perturbation analysis about a nonlinear static equilibrium is also used to determine the small perturbation flutter bound- ary. A novel noncontact 3-D camera measurement analysis system is firstly used in the wind tunnel test to obtain the spatial large deformation and responses. The responses of the flexible wing under different static equilibrium states and frequency gust loads are discussed. The fair to good quanti- tative agreements between the theoretical and experimental results demonstrate that the presented analysis method is an acceptable way to predict the geometrically nonlinear gust response for flex- ible wings.
