Transonic Flutter for aGeneric Fighter Configuration

Abstract: A hazardous and not fully understood aeroelastic phenomenon is the transonic dip,the decrease in flutter dynamic pressure that occurs for most aircraft configurationsin transonic flows. The difficulty of predicting this phenomenon forces aircraft manufacturersto run long and costly flight test campaigns to demonstrate flutter-free behaviourof their aircraft at transonic Mach numbers.In this project, subsonic and transonic flutter calculations for the KTH-NASA genericfighter research model have been performed and compared to existing experimentalflutter data from wind tunnel tests performed at NASA Langley in 2016. For the fluttercalculations, industry-standard linear panel methods have been used together with afinite element model from NASTRAN.Further, an alternative approach for more accurate transonic flutter predictions usingthe full-potential solver Phi has been investigated. To predict flutter using this newmethodology a simplified structural model has been used together with aerodynamicmeshes of the main wing. The purpose of the approach was to see if it was possibleto find a method that was more accurate than panel methods in the transonic regimewhilst still being suitable for use during iterative design processes.The results of this project demonstrated that industry-standard linear panel methodssignificantly over-predict the flutter boundary in the transonic regime. It was alsoseen that the flutter predictions using Phi showed potential, being close to the linearresults for the same configuration as tested in Phi. For improved transonic accuracy inPhi, an improved transonic flow finite element formulation could possibly help .Another challenge with Phi is the requirement of an explicit wake from all liftingsurfaces in the aerodynamic mesh. Therefore, a method for meshing external storeswith blunt trailing edges needs to be developed. One concept suggested in this projectis to model external stores in "2.5D", representing external stores using airfoils withsharp trailing edges.