Introduction to Nonlinear Aeroelasticity

Preface

Aeroelasticity is the study of the static and dynamic interaction between airflow and flexible structures. Classical aeroelasticity deals with linearised problems; all displacements are small, all springs are perfect, all contacts are smooth and all flows are attached. Nonlinear aeroelasticity does exactly the opposite; it studies the static and dynamic interaction between airflow and flexible structures in the presence of large deformations, friction, freeplay in actuators, backlash in gears, nonlinear control laws, flow separation, oscillating shock waves and other nonlinear phenomena. The combined output of researchers in the field has now reached the level of maturity necessary to make nonlinear aeroelasticity an important and useful branch of engineering.

This book is an introduction to nonlinear aeroelasticity, which means that it aims to present the phenomena of interest and the most common analysis methodologies. The emphasis of the discussion is on application, so that all theories are accompanied by practical examples solved by means of Matlab codes. The latter are available to the reader on the Wiley website; they have been tested on Matlab versions 2013 and 2014 but could also be compatible with earlier versions. The reader should note that the purpose of the codes is to illustrate the examples and the underlying theories. They solve the particular problems for which they were written but they should not be seen as general nonlinear dynamic analysis codes ...