Advanced Control Technology And Its Potential For Future Transport Aircraft PDF Download

The application of active control technology to suppress flutter has been demonstrated successfully in the Langley transonic dynamics tunnel with a delta-wing model. The model was a simplified version of a proposed supersonic transport wing design. An active flutter-suppression method based on an aerodynamic energy criterion has been verified by using three different control laws. The first two control laws utilized both leading-edge and trailing-edge active control surfaces, whereas the third control law required only a single trailing-edge active control surface. At a Mach number of 0.9 the experimental results demonstrated increases in the flutter dynamic pressure from 12.5 percent to 30 percent with active controls. Analytical methods were developed to predict both open-loop and closed-loop stability, and the results agreed reasonably well with the experimental results.