Comparison of morphing trailing edges and conventional control surfaces for active flutter suppression

Abstract

Aeroelastic modelling and stability analysis of wing with morphing trailing edge have attracted more and more attention. In order to explore the methods and characteristics between active flutter suppression of wings with morphing trailing edge and conventional control surface, a small aspect ratio wing with morphing trailing edge is taken as the object to research. Firstly, a structural finite element model is established, and the deformation modes of morphing trailing edge and conventional control surface are introduced to calculate the unsteady aerodynamic forc-es by employing subsonic doublet lattice method. Then, the rational function fitting based on minimum-state method is used to transform the frequency-domain model to time-domain model, and the aeroelastic models of two configuration wings are established. Finally, a linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) method is used to design the con-trol law to perform the active flutter suppression, and the property difference of two control modes are analyzed.The results show that the wing with morphing trailing edge can increase the critical speed of flutter by 22%, the control effect is better than conventional control surface, and the required defection angle is smaller.

Keywords

• morphing trailing edges
• conventional control surfaces
• aeroelasticity
• active flutter suppression
• linear quadratic gaussian method