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At least 91 records · Page 5

Aeroelastic stability of wind turbine blade/aileron systems

Aeroelastic stability analyses have been performed for the MOD-5A blade/aileron system. Various configurations having different aileron torsional stiffness, mass unbalance, and control system damping have been investigated. The analysis was conducted using a code recently developed by the General Electric Company - AILSTAB. The code extracts eigenvalues for a three degree of freedom system, consisting of: (1) a blade flapwise mode; (2) a blade torsional mode; and (3) an aileron torsional mode. Mode shapes are supplied as input and the aileron can be specified over an arbitrary length of the blade span. Quasi-steady aerodynamic strip theory is used to compute aerodynamic derivatives of the wing-aileron combination as a function of spanwise position. Equations of motion are summarized herein. The program provides rotating blade stability boundaries for torsional divergence, classical flutter (bending/torsion) and wing/aileron flutter. It has been checked out against fixed-wing results published by Theodorsen and Garrick. The MOD-5A system is stable with respect to divergence and classical flutter for all practical rotor speeds. Aileron torsional stiffness must exceed a minimum critical value to prevent aileron flutter. The nominal control system stiffness greatly exceeds this minimum during normal operation. The basic system, however, is unstable for the case of a free (or floating) aileron. The instability can be removed either by the addition of torsional damping or mass-balancing the ailerons. The MOD-5A design was performed by the General Electric Company, Advanced Energy Program Department under Contract DEN3-153 with NASA Lewis Research Center and sponsored by the Department of Energy.

Strain, J. C.↗

Sensitivity Analysis of Wing Aeroelastic Responses

Design for prevention of aeroelastic instability (that is, the critical speeds leading to aeroelastic instability lie outside the operating range) is an integral part of the wing design process. Availability of the sensitivity derivatives of the various critical speeds with respect to shape parameters of the wing could be very useful to a designer in the initial design phase, when several design changes are made and the shape of the final configuration is not yet frozen. These derivatives are also indispensable for a gradient-based optimization with aeroelastic constraints. In this study, flutter characteristic of a typical section in subsonic compressible flow is examined using a state-space unsteady aerodynamic representation. The sensitivity of the flutter speed of the typical section with respect to its mass and stiffness parameters, namely, mass ratio, static unbalance, radius of gyration, bending frequency, and torsional frequency is calculated analytically. A strip theory formulation is newly developed to represent the unsteady aerodynamic forces on a wing. This is coupled with an equivalent plate structural model and solved as an eigenvalue problem to determine the critical speed of the wing. Flutter analysis of the wing is also carried out using a lifting-surface subsonic kernel function aerodynamic theory (FAST) and an equivalent plate structural model. Finite element modeling of the wing is done using NASTRAN so that wing structures made of spars and ribs and top and bottom wing skins could be analyzed. The free vibration modes of the wing obtained from NASTRAN are input into FAST to compute the flutter speed. An equivalent plate model which incorporates first-order shear deformation theory is then examined so it can be used to model thick wings, where shear deformations are important. The sensitivity of natural frequencies to changes in shape parameters is obtained using ADIFOR. A simple optimization effort is made towards obtaining a minimum weight design of the wing, subject to flutter constraints, lift requirement constraints for level flight and side constraints on the planform parameters of the wing using the IMSL subroutine NCONG, which uses successive quadratic programming.

Issac, Jason Cherian↗

A preliminary study of a wake vortex encounter hazard boundary for a B737-100 airplane

A preliminary batch simulation study was conducted to define the wake decay required for a Boeing 737-100 airplane to safely encounter a Boeing 727 wake and land. The baseline six-degree-of-freedom B737 simulation was modified to include a wake model and the strip-theory calculation of the vortex-induced forces and moments. The guidance and control inputs for the airplane were provided by an autoland system. The wake strength and encounter altitude were varied to establish a safe encounter boundary. The wake was positioned such that the desired flight path traversed the core of the port Vortex. Various safe landing criteria were evaluated for defining a safe encounter boundary. A sensitivity study was also conducted to assess the effects of encounter model inaccuracies.

Reimer, Heidi M.↗

ASTROP2 Users Manual: A Program for Aeroelastic Stability Analysis of Propfans

This manual describes the input data required for using the second version of the ASTROP2 (Aeroelastic STability and Response Of Propulsion systems - 2 dimensional analysis) computer code. In ASTROP2, version 2.0, the program is divided into two modules: 2DSTRIP, which calculates the structural dynamic information; and 2DASTROP, which calculates the unsteady aerodynamic force coefficients from which the aeroelastic stability can be determined. In the original version of ASTROP2, these two aspects were performed in a single program. The improvements to version 2.0 include an option to account for counter rotation, improved numerical integration, accommodation for non-uniform inflow distribution, and an iterative scheme to flutter frequency convergence. ASTROP2 can be used for flutter analysis of multi-bladed structures such as those found in compressors, turbines, counter rotating propellers or propfans. The analysis combines a two-dimensional, unsteady cascade aerodynamics model and a three dimensional, normal mode structural model using strip theory. The flutter analysis is formulated in the frequency domain resulting in an eigenvalue determinant. The flutter frequency and damping can be inferred from the eigenvalues.

Reddy, T. S. R.↗

Experimental and Theoretical Study of a Rectangular Wing in a Vortical Wake at Low Speed

A systematic study has been made, experimentally and theoretically, of the effects of a vortical wake on the aerodynamic characteristics of a rectangular wing at subsonic speed. The vortex generator and wing were mounted on a reflection plane to avoid body-wing interference. Vortex position, relative to the wing, was varied both in the spanwise direction and normal to the wing. Angle of attack of the wing was varied from -40 to +60. Both chordwise and spanwise pressure distributions were obtained with the wing in uniform and vortical flow fields. Stream surveys were made to determine the flow characteristics in the vortical wake. The vortex-induced lift was calculated by several theoretical methods including strip theory, reverse-flow theory, and reverse-flow theory including a finite vortex core. In addition, the Prandtl lifting-line theory and the Weissinger theory were used to calculate the spanwise distribution of vortex-induced loads. With reverse-flow theory, predictions of the interference lift were generally good, and with Weissinger's theory the agreement between the theoretical spanwise variation of induced load and the experimental variation was good. Results of the stream survey show that the vortex generated by a lifting surface of rectangular plan form tends to trail back streamwise from the tip and does not approach the theoretical location, or centroid of circulation, given by theory. This discrepancy introduced errors in the prediction of vortex interference, especially when the vortex core passed immediately outboard of the wing tip. The wake produced by the vortex generator in these tests was not fully rolled up into a circular vortex, and so lacked symmetry in the vertical direction of the transverse plane. It was found that the direction of circulation affected the induced loads on the wing either when the wing was at angle of attack or when the vortex was some distance away from the plane of the wing.

Smith, Willard G.↗

A Parametric Study of Accelerations of an Airplane Due to a Wake Vortex System

A study was conducted using strip theory to systematically investigate the effects of progressively more complete descriptions of the interaction of an airplane with a wake vortex system. The emphasis was in roll-dominant, parallel, vortex encounters. That is, the simulated airplane's longitudinal axis was nearly parallel to the rotation axis of the vortex system for most of the results presented. The study began with a drag-less rectangular wing in the flow field of a single vortex and progressed to a complete airplane with aerodynamic surfaces possessing taper, sweep, dihedral, and stalling and immersed in the flow field of a vortex pair in ground effect. The effects of the pitch, roll, and yaw attitudes of the airplane on the calculated accelerations were also investigated. The airplane had the nominal characteristics of a Boeing 757, and the vortex flow field had the nominal characteristics of the wake of a Boeing 767. The Bumham-Hallock model of a vortex flow field was used throughout the study. The data are presented mainly in terms of contours of equal acceleration in a two-dimensional area centered on the vortex pair and having dimensions of 300 feet by 300 feet.

Stewart, Eric C.↗

Modeling of Wake-vortex Aircraft Encounters

There are more people passing through the world's airports today than at any other time in history. With this increase in civil transport, airports are becoming capacity limited. In order to increase capacity and thus meet the demands of the flying public, the number of runways and number of flights per runway must be increased. In response to the demand, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in conjunction with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), airport operators, and the airline industry are taking steps to increase airport capacity without jeopardizing safety. Increasing the production per runway increases the likelihood that an aircraft will encounter the trailing wake-vortex of another aircraft. The hazard of a wake-vortex encounter is that heavy load aircraft can produce high intensity wake turbulence, through the development of its wing-tip vortices. A smaller aircraft following in the wake of the heavy load aircraft will experience redistribution of its aerodynamic load. This creates a safety hazard for the smaller aircraft. Understanding this load redistribution is of great importance, particularly during landing and take-off. In this research wake-vortex effects on an encountering 10% scale model of the B737-100 aircraft are modeled using both strip theory and vortex-lattice modeling methods. The models are then compared to wind tunnel data that was taken in the 30ft x 60ft wind tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). Comparisons are made to determine if the models will have acceptable accuracy when parts of the geometry are removed, such as the horizontal stabilizer and the vertical tail. A sensitivity analysis was also performed to observe how accurately the models could match the experimental data if there was a 10% error in the circulation strength. It was determined that both models show accurate results when the wing, horizontal stabilizer, and vertical tail were a part of the geometry. When the horizontal stabilizer and vertical tail were removed there were difficulties modeling the sideforce coefficient and pitching moment. With the removal of only the vertical tail unacceptable errors occurred when modeling the sideforce coefficient and yawing moment. Lift could not be modeled with either the full geometry or the reduced geometry attempts.

Smith, Sonya T.↗

ASTROP2-LE: A Mistuned Aeroelastic Analysis System Based on a Two Dimensional Linearized Euler Solver

An aeroelastic analysis system for flutter and forced response analysis of turbomachines based on a two-dimensional linearized unsteady Euler solver has been developed. The ASTROP2 code, an aeroelastic stability analysis program for turbomachinery, was used as a basis for this development. The ASTROP2 code uses strip theory to couple a two dimensional aerodynamic model with a three dimensional structural model. The code was modified to include forced response capability. The formulation was also modified to include aeroelastic analysis with mistuning. A linearized unsteady Euler solver, LINFLX2D is added to model the unsteady aerodynamics in ASTROP2. By calculating the unsteady aerodynamic loads using LINFLX2D, it is possible to include the effects of transonic flow on flutter and forced response in the analysis. The stability is inferred from an eigenvalue analysis. The revised code, ASTROP2-LE for ASTROP2 code using Linearized Euler aerodynamics, is validated by comparing the predictions with those obtained using linear unsteady aerodynamic solutions.

Reddy, T. S. R.↗

Multi-Body Analysis of the 1/5 Scale Wind Tunnel Model of the V-22 Tiltrotor

The paper presents a multi-body analysis of the 1/5 scale wind tunnel model of the V-22 tiltrotor, the Wing and Rotor Aeroelastic Testing System (WRATS), currently tested at NASA Langley Research Center. An original multi-body formulation has been developed at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. It is based on the direct writing of the equilibrium equations of independent rigid bodies, connected by kinematic constraints that result in the addition of algebraic constraint equations, and by dynamic constraints, that directly contribute to the equilibrium equations. The formulation has been extended to the simultaneous solution of interdisciplinary problems by modeling electric and hydraulic networks, for aeroservoelastic problems. The code has been tailored to the modeling of rotorcrafts while preserving a complete generality. A family of aerodynamic elements has been introduced to model high aspect aerodynamic surfaces, based on the strip theory, with quasi-steady aerodynamic coefficients, compressibility, post-stall interpolation of experimental data, dynamic stall modeling, and radial flow drag. Different models for the induced velocity of the rotor can be used, from uniform velocity to dynamic in flow. A complete dynamic and aeroelastic analysis of the model of the V-22 tiltrotor has been performed, to assess the validity of the formulation and to exploit the unique features of multi-body analysis with respect to conventional comprehensive rotorcraft codes; These are the ability to model the exact kinematics of mechanical systems, and the possibility to simulate unusual maneuvers and unusual flight conditions, that are particular to the tiltrotor, e.g. the conversion maneuver. A complete modal validation of the analytical model has been performed, to assess the ability to reproduce the correct dynamics of the system with a relatively coarse beam model of the semispan wing, pylon and rotor. Particular care has been used to model the kinematics of the gimbal joint, that characterizes the rotor hub, and of the control system, consisting in the entire swashplate mechanism. The kinematics of the fixed and the rotating plates have been modeled, with variable length control links used to input the controls, the rotating flexible links, the pitch horns and the pitch bearings. The investigations took advantage of concurring wind tunnel test runs, that were performed in August 1998, and allowed the acquisition of data specific to the multi-body analysis.

Ghiringhelli, G. L.↗

CFD Computation of Broadband Fan Interaction Noise

In this study, a 3-D, unsteady, Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes CFD code coupled to an acoustic calculation is used to predict the contribution of the exit guide vanes to broadband fan noise. The configuration investigated is that corresponding to the NASA Source Diagnostic Test (SDT) 22-in fan rig. Then an acoustic model introduced by Nallasamy which is based on 2-D strip theory is used to compute the broadband rotor-stator interaction noise. One configuration from the SDT matrix is considered here: the fan speed correlating to approach, and outlet guide vane count designed for cut-off of the blade passage frequency. Thus, in the chosen configuration, there are 22 rotor blades and 54 stator blades. The stators are located 2.5 tip chords downstream of the rotor trailing edge. The RANS computations are used to obtain the spectra of the unsteady surface pressure on the exit guide vanes. This surface pressure is then integrated together with the Green's function for and infinite cylindrical duct to obtain the acoustic field. The results from this investigation validate the use of the CFD code along with the acoustic model for broadband fan noise predictions. The validation enables future investigations such as the determination of rotor tip clearance and stator solidity effects on fan rotor-stator interaction noise.

Grace, Sheryl M.↗

Analyzing Aeroelastic Stability of a Tilt-Rotor Aircraft

Proprotor Aeroelastic Stability Analysis, now at version 4.5 (PASTA 4.5), is a FORTRAN computer program for analyzing the aeroelastic stability of a tiltrotor aircraft in the airplane mode of flight. The program employs a 10-degree- of-freedom (DOF), discrete-coordinate, linear mathematical model of a rotor with three or more blades and its drive system coupled to a 10-DOF modal model of an airframe. The user can select which DOFs are included in the analysis. Quasi-steady strip-theory aerodynamics is employed for the aerodynamic loads on the blades, a quasi-steady representation is employed for the aerodynamic loads acting on the vibrational modes of the airframe, and a stability-derivative approach is used for the aerodynamics associated with the rigid-body DOFs of the airframe. Blade parameters that vary with the blade collective pitch can be obtained by interpolation from a user-defined table. Stability is determined by examining the eigenvalues that are obtained by solving the coupled equations of motions as a matrix eigenvalue problem. Notwithstanding the relative simplicity of its mathematical foundation, PASTA 4.5 and its predecessors have played key roles in a number of engineering investigations over the years.

Kvaternil, Raymond G.↗

Three Dimensional Surface Redefinition Method for Computational Ice Accretion Solvers

Computational tools have been increasing in maturity and are thus commonly used in the engineering design process. Advancements in NASA’s current state of the art computational ice accretion tool are required to tackle the icing challenges of tomorrow. GlennICE, a next generation ice accretion solver, is under development at NASA to tackle these challenges. One of the elements of this migration is transitioning from a quasi-three dimensional strip theory based ice accretion methodology to a fully three dimensional methodology. This requires construction of a method to redefine or extrude a discretized or tessellated surface geometry based on the predicted volumetric ice growth for each tessellated surface triangle. This paper describes the methodology that is employed in the GlennICE software, and assesses the performance of the method in replicating a well defined analytical test case.

Computational↗

Three Dimensional Surface Redefinition Method for Computational Ice Accretion Solvers

Computational tools have been increasing in maturity and are thus commonly used in the engineering design process. Advancements in NASA’s current state of the art computational ice accretion tool are required to tackle the icing challenges of tomorrow. GlennICE, a next generation ice accretion solver, is under development at NASA to tackle these challenges. One of the elements of this migration is transitioning from a quasi-three dimensional strip theory based ice accretion methodology to a fully three dimensional methodology. This requires construction of a method to redefine or extrude a discretized or tessellated surface geometry based on the predicted volumetric ice growth for each tessellated surface triangle. This paper describes the methodology that is employed in the GlennICE software, and assesses the performance of the method in replicating a well definied analytical test case.

Computational↗

Efficient Modeling of Floating Wind Arrays Including Current Loads and Seabed Bathymetry: Preprint

Capabilities for modeling the effects of seabed bathymetry and current drag loads on a floating wind farm are now available in an open-source model for quasi-static analysis. In this model, mooring lines and dynamic cables are represented by a quasistatic solver that can quickly represent complex mooring/cabling arrangements and arrays of floating bodies. To account for seabed bathymetry, we expand the model to include a surface mesh that captures changes in water depth over a rectangular grid. We formulate modifications to the catenary equations that capture a mooring line's profile and tensions when contacting a slope seabed. To account for current drag loads on mooring lines and dynamic cables, we formulate a novel technique that rotates the reference frame so that the vector sum of the the weight and the current force are used in the catenary equations, while accounting for the seabed orientation. To complete the system, current drag loads on floating substructures are handled by inclusion of strip-theory drag calculations. These new capabilities are verified by comparing with results from the established offshore dynamics models MoorDyn and OrcaFlex in equivalent steady-state scenarios. The results show very good agreement for both sloped seabeds and current loads. With computation times of the quasi-static model typically under one second, the model additions are a useful capability toward rapidly evaluating a floating wind array's response to environmental loads under realistic site conditions.

bathymetry↗

Stability of boundary layers with porous suction strips: Experiment and theory

Low turbulence tunnel experiments on the stability and transition of 2 D boundary layers on flat plates with and without suction are described. A number of general suction cases are discussed. Test results showed that the maximum stabilization occurred when the suction was moved toward the Branch I neutral point. An analytical study of the stability of two dimensional, incompressible boundary layer flows over plates with suction through porous strips was performed. The mean flow was calculated using linearized triple deck, closed form solutions. The stability results of the triple deck theory are shown to be in good agreement with those of the interacting boundary layers. An analytical optimization scheme for the suction configuration was developd. Numerical calculations were performed corresponding to the experimental configurations. In each case, the theory correctly predicts the experimental results.

Reynolds, G. A.↗

Assumed strain distributions for a finite strip plate bending element using Mindlin-Reissner plate theory

A linear finite strip plate element based on Mindlin-Reissner plate theory is developed. The analysis is suitable for both thin and thick plates. In the formulation, new transverse shear strains are introduced and assumed constant in each two-node linear strip. The element stiffness matrix is explicitly formulated for efficient computation and computer implementation. Numerical results showing the efficiency and predictive capability of the element for the analysis of plates are presented for different support and loading conditions and a wide range of thicknesses. No sign of shear locking is observed with the newly developed element.

Chulya, Abhisak↗

A Theoretical Model for Thin Film Ferroelectric Coupled Microstripline Phase Shifters

Novel microwave phase shifters consisting of coupled microstriplines on thin ferroelectric films have been demonstrated recently. A theoretical model useful for predicting the propagation characteristics (insertion phase shift, dielectric loss, impedance, and bandwidth) is presented here. The model is based on a variational solution for line capacitance and coupled strip transmission line theory.

Romanofsky, R. R.↗

A Model for Ferroelectric Phase Shifters

Novel microwave phase shifters consisting of coupled microstrip lines on thin ferroelectric films have been demonstrated recently. A theoretical model useful for predicting the propagation characteristics (insertion phase shift, dielectric loss, impedance, and bandwidth) is presented here. The model is based on a variational solution for line capacitance and coupled strip transmission line theory.

Romanofsky, Robert R.↗