Optimization of Control Surfaces Using Different Corrugated Design to Minimize the Vibration and Flutter in the Wing

Abstract

Flutter can be defined as dynamic instability of an elastic body. The critical flutter can cause poor functionality, such as torsional divergence and control surface reversal. Flutter can be a terrible phenomenon if there is coupling between the bending and torsional motion. Such coupling can be delayed using various suppression techniques.

This chapter reveals the methods to improve the torsional stiffness of the primary control surface, to delay coupling between torsional and bending motion. A simple and effective means of forming a light weight and highly stiffened plate is included in a corrugation design. A corrugated plate provides highly anisotropic behaviour in desired direction. This corrugation design can be installed on control surface to improve torsional stiffness and to shift natural frequency at which flutter occurs to a higher value. Apart from corrugation design, the other methods to prevent flutter are also discussed in this chapter.

This chapter reveals designing of corrugated plates with various corrugation shapes, such as triangular, trapezoidal and semicircle. Two major parameters focused throughout the chapter are modal frequency and stiffness of corrugated plate. Static and dynamic analysis for all corrugations is discussed by obtaining modal frequencies of all corrugated plates. The optimization of corrugated plate, such as shape of corrugation, height-to-width ratio of corrugation, number of corrugated panels to be used and distance between corrugated panels, is discussed in detail. Lastly, comparison between optimized designs is discussed thoroughly.