Flutter of Rectangular Plate at Non-Zero Flow Yaw Angle

Abstract

Panel flutter is a phenomenon of self-exciting vibrations of skin panels of flight vehicles moving at high speeds. There are two types of panel flutter. The first one is the coupled-mode flutter, which is caused by the interaction of two panel eigenmodes. The second type is the single-mode flutter, in this case the coalescence of eigenfrequencies and a significant change in the oscillation mode shape does not take place. The stability of the infinite series of thin elastic rectangular plates simply supported along all edges is investigated in this study. The non-zero flow yaw angle with supersonic leading edge is considered. We use potential flow theory to derive expression for the unsteady aerodynamic pressure distribution over the oscillating plate. The plate motion equation, after the substitution of expression for unsteady aerodynamic pressure, with simply supported boundary conditions, is an integro-differential eigenvalue problem for finding complex eigenvalues. We use the Bubnov–Galerkin procedure for finding eigenvalues. Thus, the flutter criterion is the sign of imaginary part of eigenvalue. Flutter boundaries for the first eigenfrequencies were computed for non-zero yaw angles We show how the single-mode and coupled-mode flutter boundaries are changed with the change of the yaw angle.