Aeroelastic suppression of an airfoil with control surface using nonlinear energy sink

Aeroelasticity exists in airfoil with control surface freeplay, which may induce instability in an incompressible flow. In this paper, a nonlinear energy sink (NES) is used to suppress the aeroelasticity of an airfoil with a control surface. The freeplay and cubic nonlinearity in pitch are taken into account. The harmonic balance method is used to analytically determine the limit cycle oscillations (LCOs) amplitudes of the airfoil–NES system. Linear and nonlinear flutter speeds are detected from the airfoil with control surface freeplay. When NES is attached, both the linear flutter speed of airfoil without freeplay and the nonlinear flutter speed of airfoil with a freeplay are increased. Moreover, the LCO amplitude of airfoil is decreased due to NES. Then, the influences of NES parameters on the increase in flutter boundary of airfoil are carefully studied.     

Random flutter of a 2-DOF nonlinear airfoil in pitch and plunge with freeplay in pitch

The two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) airfoil system with freeplay nonlinearity in pitch is investigated numerically. The relation between eigenvalues and flutter speed has been analyzed. The effect of parameters of the freeplay nonlinearity on the system responses is obtained. The probability density function (PDF) and phase plane of the deterministic system have been studied and the results show that the amplitude of limit cycle oscillation (LCO) grows with mean airspeeds increasing. Marginal PDFs, bidimensional PDFs, random bifurcation, and the largest Lyapunov exponent are used in investigation of the random system. The results show that, for low and intermediate level turbulences, the marginal PDFs of system exhibit different characters at different airspeed ranges. However, for high level turbulence the marginal PDFs are similar in the whole airspeed region. The bidimensional PDF has different shapes in low level turbulence at pre- and post-flutter speeds, but the PDF keeps similar shape in high level turbulence. The random bifurcation analysis indicates the P-bifurcation can happen at both pre- and post-flutter speeds but the D-bifurcation never occurs. Numerical simulations approve the results.     

Analysis of limit cycle oscillations of a typical airfoil section with freeplay

A typical airfoil section system with freeplay is investigated in the paper. The classic quasi-steady flow model is applied to calculate the aerodynamics, and a piecewise-stiffness model is adopted to characterize the nonlinearity of the airfoil section’s freeplay. There are two critical speeds in the system, i.e., a lower critical speed, above which the system might generate limit cycle oscillation, and an upper critical one, above which the system will flutter. Then a Poincaré map is constructed for the limit cycle oscillations by using piecewise-linear solutions with and without contact in the system. Through analysis of the Poincaré map, a series of equations which can determine the frequencies of period-1 limit cycle oscillations at any flight velocity are derived. Finally, these analytic results are compared to the results of numerical simulations, and a good agreement is found. The effects of freeplay value and contact stiffness ratio on the limit cycle oscillation are also analyzed through numerical simulations of the original system. Moreover, there exist multi-periods limit cycle oscillations and even complicated "chaotic" oscillations may occur, which are usually found in smooth nonlinear dynamic systems.     

FLUTTER OF AN AIRFOIL WITH A CUBIC RESTORING FORCE

In this paper, the effect of a cubic structural restoring force on the flutter characteristics of a two-dimensional airfoil placed in an incompressible flow is investigated. The aeroelastic equations of motion are written as a system of eight first-order ordinary differential equations. Given the initial values of plunge and pitch displacements and their velocities, the system of equations is integrated numerically using a fourth order Runge-Kutta scheme. Results for soft and hard springs are presented for a pitch degree-of-freedom nonlinearity. The study shows the dependence of the divergence flutter boundary on initial conditions for a soft spring. For a hard spring, the nonlinear flutter boundary is independent of initial conditions for the spring constants considered. The flutter speed is identical to that for a linear spring. Divergent flutter is not encountered, but instead limit-cycle oscillation occurs for velocities greater than the flutter speed. The behaviour of the airfoil is also analysed using analytical techniques developed for nonlinear dynamical systems. The Hopf bifurcation point is determined analytically and the amplitude of the limit-cycle oscillation in post-Hopf bifurcation for a hard spring is predicted using an asymptotic theory. The frequency of the limit-cycle oscillation is estimated from an approximate method. Comparisons with numerical simulations are carried out and the accuracy of the approximate method is discussed. The analysis can readily be extended to study limit-cycle oscillation of airfoils with nonlinear polynomial spring forces in both plunge and pitch degrees of freedom.     

LIMIT CYCLE FLUTTER CHARACTERISTICS RELATED TO CONTROL SURFACE OF LARGE AIRCRAFT1)

操纵面间隙会引起结构非线性,容易诱发极限环颤振。根据设计需要,考虑操纵面中心间隙的影响,采用最小状态拟合技术对频域非定常 气动力进行有理函数拟合,采用分段函数描述间隙引起的非线性刚度,研究操纵面在间隙作用下的极限环颤振响应的行为特点。结果表明,由于 中心间隙的影响,系统会在低于线性颤振速度时就产生极限环振荡,同时,振荡幅值随飞行速度或中心间隙的增大而增大。     

Effect of uncertainty on the bifurcation behavior of pitching airfoil stall flutter

In this paper the effect of system parametric uncertainty on the stall flutter bifurcation behavior of a pitching airfoil is studied. The aerodynamic moment on the two-dimensional rigid airfoil with nonlinear torsional stiffness is computed using the ONERA dynamic stall model. The pitch natural frequency, a cubic structural nonlinearity parameter, and the structural equilibrium angle are assumed to be uncertain. The effect on the amplitude of the response, the bifurcation of the probability distribution, and the flutter boundary is considered. It is demonstrated that the system parametric uncertainty results already in 5% probability of pitching stall flutter at a 12.5% earlier position than the point where a deterministic analysis would predict unstable behavior. Probabilistic collocation is found to be more efficient than the Galerkin polynomial chaos method and Monte Carlo simulation for modeling uncertainty in the post-bifurcation domain.     

INCREMENTAL HARMONIC BALANCE METHOD FOR AIRFOIL FLUTTER WITH MULTIPLE STRONG NONLINEARITIES

The incremental harmonic balance method was extended to analyze the flutter of systems with multiple structural strong nonlinearities. The strongly nonlinear cubic plunging and pitching stiffness terms were considered in the flutter equations of two-dimensional airfoil. First, the equations were transferred into matrix form, then the vibration process was divided into the persistent incremental processes of vibration moments. And the expression of their solutions could be obtained by using a certain amplitude as control parameter in the harmonic balance process, and then the bifurcation, limit cycle flutter phenomena and the number of harmonic terms were analyzed. Finally, numerical results calculated by the Runge-Kutta method were given to verify the results obtained by the proposed procedure. It has been shown that the incremental harmonic method is effective and precise in the analysis of strongly nonlinear flutter with multiple structural nonlinearities.     

Effects of multiple structural nonlinearities on limit cycle oscillation of missile control fin

Aeroelastic analyses are performed for a 2-D typical section model with multiple nonlinearities. The differences between a system with multiple nonlinearities in its pitch and plunge spring and a system with a single nonlinearity in its pitch are thoroughly investigated. The unsteady supersonic aerodynamic forces are calculated by the doublet point method (DPM). The iterative V-g method is used for a multiple-nonlinear aeroelastic analysis in the frequency domain and the freeplay nonlinearity is linearized using a describing function method. In the time domain, the DPM unsteady aerodynamic forces, which are based on a function of the reduced frequency, are approximated by the minimum state approximation method. Consequently, multiple structural nonlinearities in the 2-D typical wing section model are influenced by the pitch to plunge frequency ratio. This result is important in that it demonstrates that the flutter speed is closely connected with the frequency ratio, considering that both pitch and plunge nonlinearities result in a higher flutter speed boundary than a conventional aeroelastic system with only one pitch nonlinearity. Furthermore, the gap size of the freeplay affects the amplitude of the limit cycle oscillation (LCO) to gap size ratio.     

Spectrographic analysis for the modal testing of nonlinear aeroelastic systems

The spectrograph is a signal-processing tool often used for the frequency domain analysis of time-varying signals. When the signal to be analyzed is a function of time, the spectrograph represents the frequency content of the signal as a sequence of power spectra that change with time. In this paper, the usefulness of the technique is demonstrated in its application to the analysis of the time history response of a nonlinear aeroelastic system. The aeroelastic system is modelled analytically as a two-dimensional, rigid airfoil section free to move in both the bending and pitching directions and possessing a rigid flap. The airfoil is mounted by torsional and translational springs attached at the elastic axis, and the flap is used to provide the forcing input to the system. The nonlinear system is obtained by introducing a freeplay type of nonlinearity in the pitch degree-of-freedom restoring moment. The airfoil is immersed in an aerodynamic flow environment, modelled using incompressible thin airfoil theory for unsteady oscillatory motion. The equations of motion are solved using a fourth-order Runge–Kutta numerical integration technique to provide time-history solutions of the response of the airfoil in the pitch and plunge directions. Time-histories are obtained for the nonlinear responses of the linear and nonlinear aeroelastic systems to a sine-sweep input. The time-histories are analyzed using the spectrographic technique, and the frequency content of the response is plotted directly as a function of the input frequency. Results show that the combination of the sine-sweep input with the spectrographic analysis permits a unique insight into the behavior of the nonlinear system with a minimum of testing. It is shown that the frequency of the nonlinear system response is a function of the input frequency and one other characteristic frequency that can be associated with the limit cycle oscillations of the same nonlinear system subject to a transient input.     

CHAOTIC MOTIONS AND LIMIT CYCLE FLUTTER OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL WING IN SUPERSONIC FLOW

Based on the piston theory of supersonic flow and the energy method, the flutter motion equations of a two-dimensional wing with cubic stiffness in the pitching direction are established. The aeroelastic system contains both structural and aerodynamic nonlinearities. Hopf bifurcation theory is used to analyze the flutter speed of the system. The effects of system parameters on the flutter speed are studied. The 4th order Runge-Kutta method is used to calculate the stable limit cycle responses and chaotic motions of the aeroelastic system. Results show that the number and the stability of equilibrium points of the system vary with the increase of flow speed. Besides the simple limit cycle response of period 1, there are also period-doubling responses and chaotic motions in the flutter system. The route leading to chaos in the aeroelastic model used here is the period-doubling bifurcation. The chaotic motions in the system occur only when the flow speed is higher than the linear divergent speed and the initial condition is very small. Moreover, the flow speed regions in which the system behaves chaos axe very narrow.     

Transonic limit cycle oscillation behavior of an aeroelastic airfoil with free-play

The limit cycle oscillation (LCO) behaviors of an aeroelastic airfoil with free-play for different Mach numbers are studied. Euler equations are adopted to obtain the unsteady aerodynamic forces. Aerodynamic and structural describing functions are employed to deal with aerodynamic and structural nonlinearities, respectively. Then the flutter speed and flutter frequency are obtained by V-g method. The LCO solutions for the aeroelastic airfoil obtained by using dynamically linear aerodynamics agree well with those obtained directly by using nonlinear aerodynamics. Subsequently, the dynamically linear aerodynamics is assumed, and results show that the LCOs behave variously in different Mach number ranges. A subcritical bifurcation, consisting of both stable and unstable branches, is firstly observed in subsonic and high subsonic regime. Then in a narrow Mach number range, the unstable LCOs with small amplitudes turn to be stable ones dominated by the single degree of freedom flutter. Meanwhile, these LCOs can persist down to very low flutter speeds. When the Mach number is increased further, the stable branch turns back to be unstable. To address the reason of the stability variation for different Mach numbers at small amplitude LCOs, we find that the Mach number freeze phenomenon provides a physics-based explanation and the phase reversal of the aerodynamic forces will trigger the single degree of freedom flutter in the narrow Mach number range between the low and high Mach numbers of the chimney region. The high Mach number can be predicted by the freeze Mach number, and the low one can be estimated by the Mach number at which the aerodynamic center of the airfoil lies near its elastic axis. Influence of angle of attack and viscous effects on the LCO behavior is also discussed.     

Dynamic analysis of two-degree-of-freedom airfoil with freeplay and cubic nonlinearities in supersonic flow

The nonlinear aeroelastic response of a two-degree-of-freedom airfoil with freeplay and cubic nonlinearities in supersonic flows is investigated. The second-order piston theory is used to analyze a double-wedge airfoil. Then, the fold bifurcation and the amplitude jump phenomenon are detected by the averaging method and the multi-variable Floquet theory. The analytical results are further verified by numerical simulations. Finally, the influence of the freeplay parameters on the aeroelastic response is analyzed in detail.     

Nonlinear dynamics of an aeroelastic airfoil with free-play in transonic flow

Nonlinear dynamic behaviors of an aeroelastic airfoil with free-play in transonic air flow are studied. The aeroelastic response is obtained by using time-marching approach with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and reduced order model (ROM) techniques. Several standardized tests of transonic flutter are presented to validate numerical approaches. It is found that in time-marching approach with CFD technique, the time-step size has a significant effect on the calculated aeroelastic response, especially for cases considering both structural and aerodynamic nonlinearities. The nonlinear dynamic behavior for the present model in transonic air flow is greatly different from that in subsonic regime where only simple harmonic oscillations are observed. Major features of the responses in transonic air flow at different flow speeds can be summarized as follows. The aeroelastic responses with the amplitude near the free-play are dominated by single degree of freedom flutter mechanism, and snap-though phenomenon can be observed when the air speed is low. The bifurcation diagram can be captured by using ROM technique, and it is observed that the route to chaos for the present model is via period-doubling, which is essentially caused by the free-play nonlinearity. When the flow speed approaches the linear flutter speed, the aeroelastic system vibrates with large amplitude, which is dominated by the aerodynamic nonlinearity. Effects of boundary layer and airfoil profile on the nonlinear responses of the aeroelastic system are also discussed.     

Dimensionless modeling and nonlinear analysis of a coupled pitch–plunge–leadlag airfoil-based piezoaeroelastic energy harvesting system

In this paper, an airfoil-based piezoaeroelastic energy harvesting system is proposed with an additional supporting device to harvest the mechanical energy from the leadlag motion. A dimensionless dynamic model is built considering the large-effective-angle-of-attack vibrations causing (1) the nonlinear coupling between the pitch–plunge–leadlag motions, (2) the inertia nonlinearity, and (3) the aerodynamic nonlinearity modeled by the ONERA dynamic stall model. Cubic hardening stiffness is introduced in the pitch degree of freedom for persistent vibrations with acceptable amplitude beyond the flutter boundary. The nonlinear aeroelastic response and the average power output are numerically studied. Limit cycle oscillations are observed and, as the flow velocity exceeds a secondary critical speed, the system experiences complex vibrations. The power output from the leadlag motion is smaller than that from the plunge motion, whereas the gap is narrowed with increasing flow velocity. Case studies are performed toward the effects of several dimensionless system parameters, including the nonlinear torsional stiffness, airfoil mass eccentricity, airfoil radius of gyration, mass of the supporting devices, and load resistances in the external circuits. The optimal parameter values for the power outputs from the plunge and leadlag motions are, respectively, obtained. Beyond the secondary critical speed, it is shown that the variations of the power outputs with those parameters become irregular with fluctuations and multiple local maximums. The bifurcation analysis shows the mutual transitions between the limit cycle oscillations, multi-periodic vibrations, and possible chaos. The influences of these complex vibrations on the power outputs are discussed.     

Piecewise constrained optimization harmonic balance method for predicting the limit cycle oscillations of an airfoil with various nonlinear structures

A method is proposed to calculate the periodic solutions of piecewise nonlinear systems. The method is based on analytical derivation of nonlinear multi-harmonic equations of motion. Since periodic variations of nonlinear forces are characterized by different states, the vibration cycle is broken into sequential transition intervals according to the instant sets of state transitions. Analytical formulations of the harmonic coefficients of the nonlinear forces and its derivatives with respect to the harmonic coefficients of displacements are developed. Sensitivities of the harmonic coefficients of periodic solutions are determined for constructing explicit expressions for vibration amplitude levels as a function of structural parameters. Numerical investigations of the limit cycle oscillations and its sensitivities of an airfoil with different piecewise nonlinearities have been performed. The results show that the developed method is capable of determining the periodic solutions and its sensitivities with respect to the structural parameters. In order to guarantee time continuity of the nonlinear force, for the hysteresis model it is not right to track the periodic solutions by using the preload or freeplay as the continuation parameters.     

BIFURCATIONS OF AIRFOIL IN INCOMPRESSIBLE FLOW

Bifurcations of an airfoil with nonlinear pitching stiffness in incompressible flow are investigated. The pitching spring is regarded as a spring with cubic stiffness. The motion equations of the airfoil are written as the four dimensional one order differential equations. Taking air speed and the linear part of pitching stiffness as the parameters, the analytic solutions of the critical boundaries of pitchfork bifurcations and Hopf bifurcations are obtained in 2 dimensional parameter plane. The stabilities of the equilibrium points and the limit cycles in different regions of 2 dimensional parameter plane are analyzed. By means of harmonic balance method, the approximate critical boundaries of 2-multiple semi-stable limit cycle bifurcations are obtained, and the bifurcation points of supercritical or subcritical Hopf bifurcation are found. Some numerical simulation results are given.     

Response analysis of a pitch–plunge airfoil with structural and aerodynamic nonlinearities subjected to randomly fluctuating flows

This study focuses on numerically investigating the response dynamics of a pitch–plunge airfoil with structural nonlinearity under dynamic stall conditions. The aeroelastic responses are investigated for both deterministic and randomly time varying flow conditions. To that end, a pitch–plunge airfoil under dynamic stall condition is considered and the nonlinear aerodynamic loads are computed using a Leishman–Beddoes formulation. It is shown that the presence of structural nonlinearities can give rise to a variety of dynamical responses in the pre-flutter regime. Next, a response analysis under the presence of a randomly fluctuating wind is carried out. It is demonstrated that the route to flutter occurs via a regime of pre-flutter oscillations called intermittency. Finally, the manifestation of these stochastic responses is characterized by invoking stochastic bifurcation concepts. The route to flutter via intermittency is presented in terms of topological changes occurring in the joint-probability density function of the state variables.     

Nonlinear flutter behavior of a plate with motion constraints in subsonic flow

This paper is aimed at presenting the nonlinear flutter peculiarities of a cantilevered plate with motion-limiting constraints in subsonic flow. A non-smooth free-play structural nonlinearity is considered to model the motion constraints. The governing nonlinear partial differential equation is discretized in space and time domains by using the Galerkin method. The equilibrium points and their stabilities are presented based on qualitative analysis and numerical studies. The system loses its stability by flutter and undergoes the limit cycle oscillations (LCOs) due to the nonlinearity. A heuristic analysis scheme based on the equivalent linearization method is applied to theoretical analysis of the LCOs. The Hopf and two-multiple semi-stable limit cycle bifurcation bifurcations are supercritical or subcritical, which is dependent on the location of the motion constraints. For some special cases the bifurcations are, interestingly, both supercritical and subcritical. The influence of varying parameters on the dynamics is discussed in detail. The results predicted by the analysis scheme are in good agreement with the numerical ones.     

裂纹转子在支承松动时的振动特性研究

以具有支承松动的Jeffcott裂纹转子为研究对象，分析了支承松动和轴上横向裂纹对转子系统刚度的影响，建立了转子系统振动的微分方程，并用数值方法分析了其振动特性。分析表明，转子在裂纹和支承松动这两种非线性因素的作用下，表现出复杂的非线性行为。     

Three routes to chaos for a three-degree-of-freedom articulated cylinder system subjected to annular flow and impacting on the outer pipe

In this paper, the dynamics of a cantilevered articulated system of rigid cylinders interconnected by rotational springs, within a pipe containing fluid flow is studied. Although the formulation is generalized to any number of degrees-of-freedom (articulations), the present work is restricted to three-degree-of-freedom systems. The motions are considered to be planar, and the equations of motion, apart from impacting terms, are linearized. Impacting of the articulated cylinder system on the outer pipe is modelled by either a cubic spring (for analytical convenience) or, more realistically, by a trilinear spring model. The critical flow velocities, for which the system loses stability, by flutter (Hopf bifurcation) or divergence (pitchfork bifurcation) are determined by an eigenvalue analysis. Beyond these first bifurcations, it is shown that, for different values of the system parameters, chaos is obtained through three different routes as the flow is incremented: a period-doubling cascade, the quasiperiodic route, and type III intermittency. The dynamical behaviour of the system and differing routes to chaos are illustrated by phase-plane portraits, bifurcation diagrams, power spectra, Poincaré sections, and Lyapunov exponent calculations.