Investigations on the Aero-thermo-elastic Characteristics of Arbitrary Polygon Built-up Structures in Supersonic Airflow

Abstract The polygon built-up structures are widely used in engineering applications, which consist of a few flat plates. This paper develops a unified solution for the vibration and flutter problems of heated arbitrary polygon built-up structures with general boundary conditions and in supersonic airflow. By using the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), thermo-elastic theory and supersonic piston theory, the dynamic model of heated arbitrary polygon built-up structures in supersonic airflow is established based on the energy method. The unified solution is obtained by means of a variational approach and several numerical cases are performed to validate the proposed model, showing the high efficiency and excellent accuracy. Finally, to reveal the effects of the constraint, thermal load, numbers of cross-section edge and cross-section shape of the arbitrary polygon built-up structure on the vibration and flutter characteristics of the structures, the parametric studies are carried out. The present study can be used as the reference for the dynamic design of the arbitrary polygon built-up structure to improve its aero-elastic stability characteristic.