Research on Rigid–Elastic Coupling Flight Dynamics of Hybrid Wing Body Based on a Multidiscipline Co-Simulation

Abstract

Due to the special aerodynamic layout and mass distribution, the natural frequency differences between the hybrid wing body (HWB)’s rigid-body motion modes and the fuselage structure elastic modes are smaller compared to conventional aircraft, resulting in the disappearance of the decoupling relationship between the HWB’s rigid-body motion and the elastic motion of the airframe structure. For the above reason, the traditional analysis approach based on the rigid-body assumption is no longer applicable when analyzing the flight dynamics of an HWB aircraft, and a shift must be made to an analysis method that takes into account aeroelastic effects. Therefore, in this paper, a time-domain co-simulation program combining the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method with computational structure dynamics (CSD) and rigid-body dynamics (RBD) is developed to investigate the effect of a rigid–elastic coupling effect on the flight dynamics of the HWB and this co-simulation method is more advantageous in the calculation of unsteady aerodynamics compared to existing methods of rigid–elastic coupling dynamics analysis. By means of the co-simulation technology, this paper completed a series of simulations, based on which the influence of rigid–elastic coupling effect on the short-period dynamic characteristics of aircraft was studied.

Keywords

• HWB civil aircraft
• CFD/CSD/RBD coupling
• rigid–elastic coupling