Aeroelasticity

Dr. Ugur GUVEN

Aerospace Engineer (PhD)
Nuclear Science and Technology Engineer (MSc)
 What is Aeroelasticity
• Aeroelasticity is broadly defined as the
interaction between the aerodynamic forces
and the structural forces causing a
deformation in the structure of the aerospace
craft as well as in its control mechanism or in
its propulsion systems.
 Importance of Aeroelasticity
• Aeroelasticity has become a very important
force especially after the 1950’s.
• The interaction between aerodynamic loads
and structural deformations have gained great
importance in view of factors related to the
design of aircraft as well as missiles.
• Aeroelasticity plays at least some part on fuel
sloshing as well as on the reentry of spacecraft
in astronautics.
 Trends in Technology
• Due to the advancements in technology, it has
become quite common to see the slenderness
ratio (ratio of length of wing span to thickness
at the root) increase.
• The wing span area as well as the length of
aircrafts have increased causing aircraft to
become much more susceptible to interaction
between structural loads and aerodynamic
loads
Slenderness Ratio
 Effect of Aerodynamic Loads
• The forces of lift and drag as well as torsion
moment will have some sort of effect on the
structural integrity of the spacecraft.
• In many cases, some parts of aircraft or
spacecraft may bend or ripple slightly due to
these loads.
• The frequency of these loads and effects can
also cause the aircraft’s structure to suffer
from metal fatigue in the long run.
Scope of Aeroelasticity
 Vibration
• One of the ways in which aerodynamic and
structural forces collide with each other is
through vibration.
• Much like a harp, the structural forces and the
aerodynamic forces will cause vibration to set
place in the aerospace structure.
• Over time, this vibrational effect can have long
term as well as short term damaging effects on
the plane, missile or spacecraft.
Some Effects of Aeroelastic Forces
• Divergence
• Control Surface Reversal
• Flutter
• Buffeting
• Thermal Instabilities
 Divergence
• Divergence occurs when a lifting surface
deflects under aerodynamic load so as to
increase the applied load, or move the load so
that the twisting effect on the structure is
increased.
• The increased load deflects the structure
further, which brings the structure to the limit
loads and to failure.
 Control Surface Reversal
• Control surface reversal is the loss (or reversal)
of the expected response of a control surface,
due to structural deformation of the main
lifting surface.
• This can be a very dangerous phenomenon
since the deformation of control surfaces can
cause major flight instability problems
especially during takeoff and landing.
 Flutter
• Flutter is a self-feeding and potentially
destructive vibration where aerodynamic
forces on an object couple with a structure's
natural mode of vibration to produce rapid
periodic motion.
• Flutter can occur in any object within a strong
fluid flow, under the conditions that a positive
feedback occurs between the structure's
natural vibration and the aerodynamic forces
 Buffeting
• Buffeting is a high-frequency instability,
caused by airflow separation or shock wave
oscillations from one object striking another.
• It is caused by a sudden impulse of load
increasing. It is a random forced vibration
• Generally it affects the tail unit of the aircraft
structure due to air flow down stream of the
wing.
 Thermal Instability
• Aero thermo elasticity deals with the
deformation of the aircraft due to cyclic
thermal changes or thermal loads.
• In aerospace vehicles, stress induced by high
temperatures is important
• Hence, most composite materials used in
aerospace vehicles are designed by keeping
this in mind.
Effects of Aeroelasticity
Effects of Aeroelasticity
Effects of Aeroelasticity
Effects of Aeroelasticity
 Aeroelasticity in Spacecraft
• Aeroelasticity is not just confined to aircraft.
Although buffeting and flutter have become a
major concern for the aeronautics industry,
aerospace vehicles are also effected.
• For aerospace craft, takeoff and landing are
two distinct phases where the spacecraft are
subjected to aerodynamic loads.
• For long range missiles, this can especially
become a very important problem in high
speed flights.
Aeroelastic Forces on a Missile
Aeroelastic Forces on a Missile
Aeroelasticity Problems for Spacecraft
Various Effects on Aerospace Vehicles
 Aeroelastic Tailoring
• Due to the high level of concern for negative
Aeroelastic events such as flutter, a new branch of
aerospace engineering called Aeroelastic tailoring
has submerged.
• Once an aerospace vehicle is designed, techniques
of Aeroelastic tailoring is used to make changes in
the craft to resist Aeroelastic effects.
• Usually this is done not by changing the design, but
by changing the structural material such as by using
composite materials on aircraft
Aeroelastic Tailoring
Aeroelastic Tailoring
 Aeroelasticity and Engineering
• Aeroelasticity is not just confined to aerospace
engineering as it is also used in several areas
of mechanical and civil engineering.
• Especially in civil structures like power lines as
well as suspension bridges, aeroelasticity can
play a very important role due to vibrational
effects caused by aerodynamic loads.
 Power Lines
• Among examples of engineering significance, the most
familiar is probably the oscillation of telephone wires,
with high frequency and small amplitude, producing
musical tones.
• Smokestacks, submarine periscopes, oil pipe lines,
television antennas, and other cylindrical
• Structures often encounter vibrational troubles of
Aeroelastic origin.
• These may be cured either by stiffening the structures
so that the natural frequency is much higher then the
resonance frequency or by introducing vibrational
dampers into the system
 Vortex Shedding and Flow Separation
• Whenever vortex shedding is induced in a structure, it
will cause vibrations that will effect the structure. This
phenomena is especially observed with power lines.
 Flutter
• Flutter is a self excited oscillation that does
not necessarily involve flow separation or
vortex shedding
• Flutter can occur in any object within a strong
fluid flow, under the conditions that a positive
feedback occurs between the structure's
natural vibration and the aerodynamic forces.
That is, that the vibrational movement of the
object increases an aerodynamic load, which
in turn drives the object to move further.
 Flutter
• If the energy during the period of
aerodynamic excitation is larger than the
natural damping of the system, the level of
vibration will increase, resulting in self-exciting
oscillation. The vibration levels can thus build
up and are only limited when the aerodynamic
or mechanical damping of the object matches
the energy input, which often results in large
amplitudes and can lead to rapid failure
 Flutter
• Even changing the mass distribution of an
aircraft or the stiffness of one component can
induce flutter in an apparently unrelated
aerodynamic component
• At its mildest this can appear as a "buzz" in the
aircraft structure, but at its most violent it can
develop uncontrollably with great speed and
cause serious damage to or the destruction of
the aircraft
 Flutter in Civil Structures
• Flutter can be of main concern in civil
structures where separation of the flow may
occur due to the oscillation of the structure
due to aerodynamic loads.
• Especially suspension bridges are very
susceptible to flutter. Even though they are
streamlined so that flow separation doesn’t
occur, high vibrational frequency near the
resonance frequency can seriously effect the
structural integrity
 Tacoma Narrows Bridge
• The biggest example of flutter in civil
structures has been the collapse of the
Tacoma Narrows Bridge in which the structure
collapsed only 4 months after opening.
• The collapse occurred when the wind speed
was around 42mph and the frequency of the
oscillation changed from 14 to 37 cycles per
minutes
• The bridge collapsed under 30 minutes from
its midpoint.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Tacoma Narrows Bridge
 Flutter Velocity
• Movement inserts energy to the bridge during each cycle
so that it neutralizes the natural damping of the structure;
the composed system (bridge-fluid) therefore behaves as if
it had an effective negative damping (or had positive
feedback), leading to an exponentially growing response.
• In other words, the oscillations increase in amplitude with
each cycle because the wind pumps in more energy than
the flexing of the structure can dissipate, and finally drives
the bridge toward failure due to excessive deflection and
stress. The wind speed that causes the beginning of the
fluttering phenomenon (when the effective damping
becomes zero) is known as the flutter velocity.
 Karman Vortex Street
• Another Aeroelastic phenomena besides
flutter is vortex shedding in the form of
Karman Vortex Street.
• It is repeating pattern of swirling vortices
caused by the unsteady separation of flow of a
fluid over bluff bodies
• It can effect telephone wires as well as tall
buildings and extremely large aircraft
• In low turbulence, tall buildings can produce a
Karman street so long as the structure is
uniform along its height.
Karman Vortex Street
 Karman Vortex Street

• Where:
• f = vortex shedding frequency.
• d = diameter of the cylinder
• V = flow velocity.
• The dimensionless parameter fd/V is known as
the Strouhal number
Effect of Wind
Amplitude of Oscillations vs Wind
 Prevention of Aeroelastic Instabilities
• Aeroelastic oscillations cannot be always
prevented
• However, oscillations can be damped or the
amplitude of the oscillations can be bounded
for the entire range if flow speeds.
• Hence, different methods have been devised
for reduced aerodynamic loads and vibration
through strengthening the material or by
changing the design shape.
 Prevention of Aeroelastic Instabilities
• For a cylindrical body, the resonance
oscillation between the structure and the
shedding vortices can be avoided by providing
the structure with sufficient stiffness so that
the natural frequency of the structure is much
more higher then the frequency of the
vortices.
 Prevention of Aeroelastic Instabilities
• For an unstable aerodynamic section, the only
way of preventing large amplitude oscillations is
to provide sufficient damping of the system.
• However, this damping must be made in such a
way that the overall stability of the flight vehicle
must not be compromised
• Again using composite materials is usually a
good idea as they can be built with semi
damping capabilities
 Prevention of Aeroelastic Instabilities
• In a civil engineering structure, aerodynamic
forces are undesirable and an ideal section is
one that produces no lift or drag.
• Usually many civil structures are designed in a
streamlined manner so that flow separation
will not occur and flutter can be predicted
with good accuracy.
• In addition, decreasing the projected frontal
area against the wind will decrease the
magnitude of the aerodynamic forces
 Prevention of Aeroelastic Instabilities
• Aerodynamic forces are proportional to the
vorticity strength, which in turn is proportional
to the profile drag.
• A reduction in projected frontal area reduces
the profile drag and hence reduces the
effective aerodynamic force
 Prevention of Aeroelastic Instabilities
• Changing the configuration of the control
surfaces would also work as you would be able
to change the position of flow separation as
well as you will be able to dampen the
oscillations up to some degree.
• Nowadays, all major flights are flown purely
on autopilot in which the flight computer
evaluates the information from its sensors and
adjusts the control surfaces as well as engine
power and navigation systems constantly
 Flow Separation
• Flow separation along with flutter is an
important Aeroelastic phenomena.
• The flow in the boundary layer is pulled
forward by the free stream, but is retarded by
friction at the solid wall as well as by the
adverse pressure gradient. (since pressure
difference is an important part of flows)
• If the adverse pressure gradient is sufficiently
large, the flow will reverse on itself and detach
completely and become separated.
 Flow Separation
• A streamlined body maintains a smooth flow
when it is properly situated in the flow, but
when the angle between the chord and the
undisturbed stream is sufficiently large ,
separation may still occur.
• Hence, both the Reynolds number as well as
the Strouhal number are very important in
understanding the phenomena of separation
 Importance of Reynolds Number in
Aeroelasticity
• Reynolds number expresses a ratio between
inertial forces and the friction force.
• A flow pattern is determined by the interplay
amongst the pressure gradients, friction as well
as inertia.
• A small value of the Reynolds number means
friction forces predominate, while a large value
means inertial forces dominate
• High Reynolds numbers will cause turbulent
flow and as a result excite oscillations in an
elastic structure
Reynolds Number Effect
 Strouhal Number
• As defined before in the Karman Vortex Street,
Strouhal number is also another important
parameter in aero elasticity.
• k = fd/V
• Frequency is defined as radians per second
• Strouhal number has a tendency to rise as the
Reynolds number also rises. However, the
relationship is not linear in nature and can
depend upon the shape of the object as well
too
Relationship Between Strouhal Number – Re
- Cd
Effect of Frequency and Aeroelasticity
 THANK YOU
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lectures on Aeroelasticity

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