AEROELASTICITY AND FLIGHT MECHANICS: STABILITY ANALYSIS USING LAPLACE-DOMAIN AERODYNAMICS

An efficient method for the non-iterative solution of the nonlinear flutter eigenvalue problem is presented. The properties of the piecewise quadratic decomposition employed make it particularly suitable for the parallel solution of aeroelastic stability problems where interaction of rigid-body and elastic motion is of interest or where the flutter damping must be obtained with accuracy, e.g. when comparison to flutter flight testing is intended. Additionally, the method allows the use of Laplace-domain aerodynamics if available. The paper presents a realistically complex test case which exposes some of the advantages and current shortcoming of the proposed solution procedure.