Aeroelastic Uncertainty Analysis Toolbox

Flutter is a potentially explosive phenomenon that results from the simultaneous interaction of aerodynamic, structural, and inertial forces. The nature of flutter mandates that flight testing be cautious and conservative. In addition to the flutter instability, adverse aeroelastic phenomena include limit cycle oscillations, buffeting, buzz, and undesirable gust response. The analytical prediction of aeroelastic phenomena in the transonic regime has historically been troublesome and requires high fidelity simulation models to obtain accurate predictions. The models are, however, computationally expensive. Traditional uncertainty analysis is therefore not often applied to flutter prediction. The proposed work is to develop computationally efficient methods that reduce the existing computational time limitations of traditional uncertainty analysis. Building upon the successful Phase I demonstration, the coupling of Design of Experiments and Response Surface Methods and the application of robust stability techniques, namely ƒÝ-analysis, will be combined into a comprehensive software toolbox: STI-Aeroservoelastic Robustness Toolbox. STI-ART will have the flexibility to use computational unsteady aerodynamic and structural finite element models from a variety of sources, ranging from simple potential flow models (e.g., doublet lattice methods) and linear structural models to solutions based on modeling of the full Navier Stokes equations and non-linear structural models with many elements.