Effect of multiple engine placement on aeroelastic trim and stability of flying wing aircraft

Effects of multiple engine placement on flutter characteristics of a backswept flying wing resembling the HORTEN IV are investigated using the code NATASHA (Nonlinear Aeroelastic Trim And Stability of HALE Aircraft). Four identical engines with defined mass, inertia, and angular momentum are placed in different locations along the span with different offsets from the elastic axis while fixing the location of the aircraft c.g. The aircraft experiences body freedom flutter along with non-oscillatory instabilities that originate from flight dynamics. Multiple engine placement increases flutter speed particularly when the engines are placed in the outboard portion of the wing (60–70% span), forward of the elastic axis, while the lift to drag ratio is affected negligibly. The behavior of the sub- and supercritical eigenvalues is studied for two cases of engine placement. NATASHA captures a hump body-freedom flutter with low frequency for the clean wing case, which disappears as the engines are placed on the wings. In neither case is there any apparent coalescence between the unstable modes. NATASHA captures other non-oscillatory unstable roots with very small amplitude, apparently originating with flight dynamics. For the clean-wing case, in the absence of aerodynamic and gravitational forces, the regions of minimum kinetic energy density for the first and third bending modes are located around 60% span. For the second mode, this kinetic energy density has local minima around the 20% and 80% span. The regions of minimum kinetic energy of these modes are in agreement with calculations that show a noticeable increase in flutter speed if engines are placed forward of the elastic axis at these regions.     

Role of wing morphing in thrust generation

In this paper, we investigate the role of morphing on flight dynamics of two birds by simulating the flow over rigid and morphing wings that have the characteristics of two different birds, namely the Giant Petrel and Dove Prion. The simulation of a flapping rigid wing shows that the root of the wing should be placed at a specific angle of attack in order to generate enough lift to balance the weight of the bird. However, in this case the generated thrust is either very small, or even negative, depending on the wing shape. Further, results show that morphing of the wing enables a significant increase in the thrust and propulsive efficiency. This indicates that the birds actually utilize some sort of active wing twisting and bending to produce enough thrust. This study should facilitate better guidance for the design of flapping air vehicles.     

Subcritical, nontypical and period-doubling bifurcations of a delta wing in a low speed wind tunnel

Limit Cycle Oscillations (LCOs) involving Delta wings are an important area of research in modern aeroelasticity. Such phenomena can be the result of geometric or aerodynamic nonlinearity. In this paper, a flexible half-span Delta wing is tested in a low speed wind tunnel in order to investigate its dynamic response. The wing is designed to be more flexible than the models used in previous research on the subject in order to expand the airspeed range in which LCOs occur. The experiments reveal that this wing features a very rich bifurcation behavior. Three types of bifurcation are observed for the first time for such an aeroelastic system: subcritical bifurcations, period-doubling/period-halving and nontypical bifurcations. They give rise to a great variety of LCOs, even at very low angles of attack. The LCOs resulting from the nontypical bifurcation display Hopf-type behavior, i.e. having fundamental frequencies equal to one of the linear modal frequencies. All of the other LCOs have fundamental frequencies that are unrelated to the underlying linear system modes.