Review and prospect of flutter boundary prediction methods for flight flutter testing

Flight flutter testing, whose objective is to identify the flutter boundary, is an indispensible course for new aircraft to finalize. Because of the extremely great risk, high consumption and long period, researchers have been always pursuing a more secure, accurate and efficient flutter boundary prediction method. Based on the summary and analysis of the previous research, from the aspects of conventional flutter boundary prediction methods and new methods for flight flutter testing, this paper makes a more comprehensive and relatively concise introduction of many kinds of flutter prediction methods, and it highlights the basic principles, merits and demerits as well as the development of these methods. According to the fundamental principles and characteristics of various methods, they are divided into two categories, namely, introducing stability parameters methods and considering a coupled fluid-structure system method. Then, the two kinds of methods are compared and summarized. Finally, technical difficulties encountered at present and the development trend in the field of flight flutter testing are preliminary discussed.