Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of concentrated nonlinearities, freeplays, on the aeroelastic behaviors of single- and double-folded control fins. The nonlinearities may cause limit cycle oscillation(LCO) below the linear flutter boundary. The effects of nonlinear hinges on LCO characteristics of the fins are examined as flight condition changes. Nonlinear time-domain flutter analyses are performed, using ZAERO. The results show that the aeroelastic stability boundaries of double-folded fin(DF) are higher than those of the single-folded fin(SF) and the lower hinge freeplay impact more critically on the stability than the upper hinge freeplay of the DF.