Stochastic Modeling and Reliability Analysis of Wing Flutter
This article has been corrected.
VIEW CORRECTIONPublication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 5
Abstract
In this work, a physics-based first-order reliability method (FORM) algorithm is proposed for the flutter reliability analysis of an aircraft wing in the frequency domain. The limit state function, which is an implicit function of random variables, is defined in terms of the damping ratio of the aeroelastic system in a conditional sense on flow velocity. Two aeroelastic cases, namely, an airfoil section model and a cantilever wing model, are considered for carrying out the studies. These aeroelastic models have well separated mean bending and mean torsional modal frequencies. The geometric, structural, and aerodynamic parameters of airfoil and wing systems are modeled as independent Gaussian random variables. The effects of these on the statistics of frequency and damping ratio, and the cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of flutter velocity are studied. In the case of the wing, the effects of modeling stiffness parameters as Gaussian random fields on the CDFs of flutter velocity are also studied. Here, spectral stochastic finite element method (SFEM) based on Karhunen–Loeve (K–L) expansion is used to discretize the random fields into random variables. From the study of an airfoil system, it is observed that parameters like torsional stiffness, elastic axis location, free stream density, and mass moment of inertia are more sensitive as compared with other parameters. However, in the case of the wing parameters such as torsional stiffness, free stream density, mass moment of inertia, and mass are observed to be more sensitive. The CDFs of flutter velocity obtained using the proposed algorithm are compared with Monte Carlo simulations (MCS) and found to be accurate. A comparative study of aeroelastic reliability for the wing is also carried out by treating stiffness parameters as random variables and random fields. It is observed that the CDFs of flutter velocity in the tail region are conservative when stiffness parameters are treated as random variables.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are proprietary or confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions.
Restriction: All data may be provided on request but codes are proprietary or confidential in nature.
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Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 5 • September 2020
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©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 3, 2019
Accepted: Feb 5, 2020
Published online: May 18, 2020
Published in print: Sep 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Oct 18, 2020
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