Time-domain nonlinear aeroelastic analysis and wind tunnel test of a flexible wing using strain-based beam formulation

Abstract A theoretical formulation for time-domain nonlinear aeroelastic analysis of a flexible wing model is presented and validated by wind tunnel tests. A strain-based beam model for nonlinear structural analysis is combined with the Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method (UVLM) to form the complete framework for aeroelastic analysis. The nonlinear second-order differential equations are solved by an implicit time integration scheme that incorporates a Newton-Raphson sub-iteration technique. An advanced fiber optic sensing technique is firstly used in a wind tunnel for measuring large structural deformations. In the theoretical study, the nonlinear flutter boundary is determined by analyzing the transient response about the nonlinear static equilibrium with a series of flow velocities. The gust responses of the wing model at various gust frequencies are also studied. Comparisons of the theoretical and experimental results show that the proposed method is suitable for determining the nonlinear flutter boundary and simulating the gust response of flexible wings in the time domain.