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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the accuracy of linear and quasi-steady aerodynamic models of aircraft aerodynamic models when a small unmanned aerial system flies in the presence of strong wind and gust at a high angle of attack and a high sideslip angle.

Compatibility analysis were done to improve the quality of recorded flight test data. A robust method called fuzzy logic modeling is used to set up the aerodynamic models. The reduced frequency is used to represent the unsteadiness of the flow field according to Theodorsen’s theory. The work done by the aerodynamic moments on the motions is used as the criteria of stability.

In portions of flight, aircraft’s stability and control derivatives were unstable and nonlinear functions of airflow angles and angular rates. The roll angle had an important effect on unsteadiness of directional oscillatory damping derivatives. The pilot-induced oscillation and wing rock possibilities were investigated and dismissed so that the lateral directional oscillatory motion was classified as a nonlinear Dutch roll oscillation. Major modeling enhancements or real-time parameter identification are required for the control of a small unmanned aerial system in off-nominal conditions. The robustness tests of all-weather autopilot systems must be done with consideration of sign change.

Oscillatory damping derivatives were reconstructed using flight test data and the inadequacy of engineering level software in predicting this type of instability observed and demonstrated for a flight in the presence of wind shear and external disturbances.

Some recent effort showed that usage of Krueger flaps helps to maintain laminar flow in cruise flight. Such flaps are positioned higher relative to the chord to shield the leading edge from the insect contamination during take-off. The flap passes several through critical intermediate position during the deployment to its design position. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the aerodynamics.

To better understand such flow phenomena, the combined approach of computational fluid dynamics and experimental methods were used. Flow simulation was performed with in-house finite volume Navier–Stokes solver in fully turbulent unsteady RANS regime. The experimental data were obtained by means of force and pressure measurements and some areas of the flow field were examined with 2 C particle image velocimetry.

The airfoil with flap in critical position has a very limited maximum lift coefficient. The maximum achievable lift coefficient during the deployment is significantly affected by the vertical position of the trailing edge of the flap. The most unfavourable position during the deployment is not the flap perpendicular to the chord, but the flap inclined closer to it is the retracted position.

The flap movement was not simulated either in the simulation or in the experiment. Only intermediate static positions were examined.

A better understanding of aerodynamic phenomena connected with the deployment of a Krueger flap can contribute to the simpler and lighter of kinematics and also to decrease time-to-market.

Limited experimental and computational results of Krueger flap in critical positions during the deployment are published in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze experimentally subsonic wake of a supercritical airfoil undergoing a pitch–hold–return motion. The focus of the investigation has been narrowed to concentrate on the steadiness of the flow field in the wake of the airfoil and the role of reduced frequency, amplitude and the hold phase duration.

All experiments were conducted in a low sub-sonic closed-circuit wind tunnel, at a Reynolds number of approximately 600,000. The model was a supercritical airfoil having 10% thickness and wall-to-wall in ground test facilities. To calculate the velocity distribution in the wake of the airfoil, total and static pressures were recorded at a distance of one chord far from the trailing edge, using pressure devices. The reduced frequency was set at 0.012, 0.03 and the motion pivot was selected at c/4.

Analysis of the steadiness of the wake flow field ascertains that an increase in reduced frequency leads to further flow time lag in the hold phase whereas decreases the time that the wake remains steady after the start of the return portion. Also, the roles of amplitude and stall condition are examined.

Examination of a pitch–hold–return motion is substantial in assessment of aerodynamics of maneuvers with a rapid increase in angle of attack. Moreover, study of aerodynamic behavior of downstream flow field and its steadiness in the wake of the airfoil is vital in drag reduction and control of flapping wings, dynamic stability and control of aircrafts.

In the present study, to discuss the steadiness of the flow field behind the airfoil some statistical methods and concept of histogram using an automatic algorithm were used and a specific criterion to characterize the steadiness of flow field was achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the uncontrolled vertical takeoff of an insect-mimicking flapping-wing micro air vehicle (FW-MAV) of 12.5 cm wing span with a body weight of 7.36 g after installing batteries and power control.

The forces were measured using a load cell and estimated by the unsteady blade element theory (UBET), which is based on full three-dimensional wing kinematics. In addition, the mean aerodynamic force center (AC) was determined based on the UBET calculations using the measured wing kinematics.

The wing flapping frequency can reach to 43 Hz at the flapping angle of 150°. By flapping wings at a frequency of 34 Hz, the FW-MAV can produce enough thrust to over its own weight. For this condition, the difference between the estimated and average measured vertical forces was about 7.3 percent with respect to the estimated force. All parts for the FW-MAV were integrated such that the distance between the mean AC and the center of gravity is close to zero. In this manner, pitching moment generation was prevented to facilitate stable vertical takeoff. An uncontrolled takeoff test successfully demonstrated that the FW-MAV possesses initial pitching stability for takeoff.

This work has successfully demonstrated an insect-mimicking flapping-wing MAV that can stably takeoff with initial stability.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics in the deflection process of a morphing wing with flexible trailing edge, which is based on time-accurate solutions. The dynamic effect of deflection process on the aerodynamics of morphing wing was studied.

The computational fluid dynamic method and dynamic mesh combined with user-defined functions were used to simulate the continuous morphing of the flexible trailing edge. The steady aerodynamic characteristics of the morphing deflection and the conventional deflection were studied first. Then, the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of the morphing wing were investigated as the trailing edge deflects at different rates.

The numerical results show that the transient lift coefficient in the deflection process is higher than that of the static case one in large angle of attack. The larger the deflection frequency is, the higher the transient lift coefficient will become. However, the situations are contrary in a small angle of attack. The periodic morphing of the trailing edge with small amplitude and high frequency can increase the lift coefficient after the stall angle.

The investigation can afford accurate aerodynamic information for the design of aircraft with the morphing wing technology, which has significant advantages in aerodynamic efficiency and control performance.

The dynamic effects of the deflection process of the morphing trailing edge on aerodynamics were studied. Furthermore, time-accurate solutions can fully explore the unsteady aerodynamics and pressure distribution of the morphing wing.

The details of predicting the aerodynamic forces of maneuvering helicopter rotors are discussed in this paper. A new approach to modeling the unsteady rotor aerodynamic forces is presented based on the insight into nonuniform induced velocity distribution, inflow dynamics and unsteady airfoil behavior. For a specified maneuver, the rotor control inputs and helicopter flight attitudes during the maneuvering are first obtained using inverse solution technique, and then the unsteady rotor forces are numerically simulated by synthetically applying the vortex theory, dynamic inflow theory and unsteady airfoil aerodynamic models. Good results of the sample calculations of lateral jink and pop‐up maneuvers are obtained.

This study aims to simulate gust effects on the aeroelastic behavior of a flexible aircraft. The dynamic response of the system for different discreet gust excitations is obtained using numerical simulations.

Coupled dynamics, including rigid and flexible body coordinates, are considered for modeling the dynamic behavior of the aircraft. Wing is considered flexible and other parts are considered rigid. Wing is modeled with nonlinear Euler Bernoulli beam. Moreover, unsteady aerodynamics based on the Wagner function are used for aerodynamic loading, and the results are compared with those of quasi-steady aerodynamics.

Von Kármán continuous gust is applied to this aircraft. In addition, the discrete “1- cosine” gust with different gust lengths is applied to the aircraft, and the maximum and minimum accelerations are computed. It is shown that the nonlinear modeling of the system represents the actual behavior and causes limit cycle oscillation phenomena.

This methodology can yield a relatively simple dynamic model for high aspect ratio aircrafts to provide insights into the vehicles’ dynamics, which can be available early in the design cycle.

So far the literature on inverse shape design in aerodynamics is still confined to the single‐point (nominal design point) design and to steady flow. This situation cannot cope with the modern development of internal and external aerodynamics and aerothermoelasticity, especially turbomachinery and aircraft flows. Accordingly, in recent years a new generation of inverse shape design problem has been suggested and investigated theoretically and computationally, consisting mainly of: unsteady inverse and hybrid problems; multipoint inverse and hybrid problems; and inverse problem in aerothermoelasticity. It opens a new area of research in fluid mechanics and aerothermoelasticity. An overview of its status and perspective is given herein, emphasizing the new concepts, theory and methods of solution involved.

This paper aims to focus on mathematical model development issues, necessary for a better prediction of dynamic responses of articulated rotor helicopters.

The methodology is laid out based on model development for an articulated main rotor, using the theories of aeroelastisity, finite element and state‐space represented indicial‐based unsteady aerodynamics. The model is represented by a set of nonlinear partial differential equations for the main rotor within a state‐space representation for all other parts of helicopter dynamics. The coupled rotor and fuselage formulation enforces the use of numerical solution techniques for trim and linearization calculations. The mathematical model validation is carried out by comparing model responses against flight test data for a known configuration.

Improvements in dynamic prediction of both on‐axis and cross‐coupled responses of helicopter to pilot inputs are observed.

Further work is required for investigation of the unsteady aerodynamics, a state‐space representation, within various compatible dynamic inflow models to describe the helicopter response characteristics.

The results of this work support ongoing research on the development of highly accurate helicopter flight dynamic mathematical models. These models are used as engineering tools both for designing new aerial products such as modernized agile helicopters and optimization of the old version products at minimum time and expense.

Provides further information on the mathematical model development problems associated with advanced helicopter flight dynamics research.

Ground vibration testing (GVT) results can be used as system parameters for predicting flutter, which is essential for aeroelastic clearance. This paper aims to compute GVT-based flutter in time domain, using unsteady air loads by matrix polynomial approximations.

The experimental parameters, namely, frequencies and mode shapes are interpolated to build an equivalent finite element model. The unsteady aerodynamic forces extracted from MSC NASTRAN are approximated using matrix polynomial approximations. The system matrices are condensed to the required shaker location points to build an aeroelastic reduced order state space model in SIMULINK.

The computed aerodynamic forces are successfully reduced to few input locations (optimal) for flutter simulation on unknown structural system (where stiffness and mass are not known) through a case study. It is demonstrated that GVT data and the computed unsteady aerodynamic forces of a system are adequate to represent its aeroelastic behaviour.

Airforce of every nation continuously upgrades its fleet with advanced weapon systems (stores), which demands aeroelastic flutter clearance. As the original equipment manufacturers does not provide the design data (stiffness and mass) to its customers, a new methodology to build an aeroelastic system of unknown aircraft is devised.

A hybrid approach is proposed, involving GVT data to build an aeroelastic state space system, using rationally approximated air loads (matrix polynomial approximations) computed on a virtual FE model for ground flutter simulation.