Analysis of nonlinear aeroelastic characteristics of a trapezoidal wing in hypersonic flow

Nonlinear aeroelastic behavior of a trapezoidal wing in hypersonic flow is investigated. The aeroelastic governing equations are built by von Karman large deformation theory and the third-order piston theory. The Rayleigh–Ritz approach combined with the affine transformation is formulated and employed to transform the equations of a trapezoidal wing structure, modeled as a cantilevered wing-like plate, into modal coordinates. And then the modal equations are solved by numerical integrations. Several typical cases are studied to validate the capability of the proposed method for linear and nonlinear aeroelastic analysis of trapezoidal cantilever plate in hypersonic flow. The effects of Rayleigh–Ritz mode truncation for various wing-plate geometrical characteristics, i.e., sweep angle of leading edge, taper ratio and span, are examined to determine the appropriate mode number for accurate modeling and fast calculation. Meanwhile, the effects of various geometries of trapezoidal cantilever plates on the flutter stability are investigated. The nonlinear dynamic behaviors of the model with three typical geometries, namely, the rectangular, parallelogram and trapezoidal wing-like plate, are simulated numerically. Furthermore, complex dynamic behaviors are observed and identified via the phase plot, the Poincare map and the largest Lyapunov exponent. The results demonstrate that geometrical parameters of trapezoidal wing have significant effects on the nonlinear aeroelastic behaviors of wing structure. In particular, the evolution processes of chaos exhibit remarkable difference for these three wing configurations.