• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.353-369
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• 2017

Flutter is a dangerous phenomenon encountered in flexible structures subjected to aerodynamic forces. This includes aircraft, buildings and bridges. Flutter occurs as a result of interactions between aerodynamic, stiffness, and inertia forces on a structure. In an aircraft, as the speed of the flow increases, there may be a point at which the structural damping is insufficient to damp out the motion which is increasing due to aerodynamic energy being added to the structure. This vibration can cause structural failure, and therefore considering flutter characteristics is an essential part of designing an aircraft. Scientists and engineers studied flutter and developed theories and mathematical tools to analyze the phenomenon. Strip theory aerodynamics, beam structural models, unsteady lifting surface methods (e.g., Doublet-Lattice) and finite element models expanded analysis capabilities. Periodic Structures have been in the focus of research for their useful characteristics and ability to attenuate vibration in frequency bands called "stop-bands". A periodic structure consists of cells which differ in material or geometry. As vibration waves travel along the structure and face the cell boundaries, some waves pass and some are reflected back, which may cause destructive interference with the succeeding waves. This may reduce the vibration level of the structure, and hence improve its dynamic performance. In this paper, for the first time, we analyze the flutter characteristics of a wing with a periodic change in its sandwich construction. The new technique preserves the external geometry of the wing structure and depends on changing the material of the sandwich core. The periodic analysis and the vibration response characteristics of the model are investigated using a finite element model for the wing. Previous studies investigating the dynamic bending response of a periodic sandwich beam in the absence of flow have shown promising results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.957-962
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• 2012

Fluid/structure interaction (FSI) analysis is necessary to predict the response of a system in which aerodynamic pressure causes deformation of the structure, and vice versa. In dealing with a nonlinear behavior of the structure, however, a simple iterative algorithm of aerodynamic analysis with structural analysis yields no accurate results since aerodynamic pressure need to be changed in accordance with the deformation of structures. In this study, we explore an efficient and accurate method for integrating FSI analysis into structural nonlinear systems. During the course of nonlinear structural analysis, loading conditions are periodically updated by aerodynamic analysis. The accuracy and efficiency of the method is demonstrated with a high-aspect-ratio flexible wing of Global Hawk.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.71-88
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• 2018

At the University of Western Ontario (UWO), numerical tools represented in semi-closed form solution for the conductors and finite element modeling of the lattice tower were developed and utilized significantly to assess the behavior of transmission lines under downburst wind fields. Although these tools were validated against other finite element analyses, it is essential to validate the findings of those tools using experimental data. This paper reports the first aeroelastic test for a multi-span transmission line under simulated downburst. The test has been conducted at the three-dimensional wind testing facility, the WindEEE dome, located at the UWO. The experiment considers various downburst locations with respect to the transmission line system. Responses obtained from the experiment are analyzed in the current study to identify the critical downburst locations causing maximum internal forces in the structure (i.e., potential failure modes), which are compared with the failure modes obtained from the numerical tools. In addition, a quantitative comparison between the measured critical responses obtained from the experiment with critical responses obtained from the numerical tools is also conducted. The study shows a very good agreement between the critical configurations of the downburst obtained from the experiment compared to those predicted previously by different numerical studies. In addition, the structural responses obtained from the experiment and those obtained from the numerical tools are in a good agreement where a maximum difference of 16% is found for the mean responses and 25% for the peak responses.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2017

Characteristics of aerodynamic damping ratios of a helical $180^{\circ}$ model which shows better aerodynamic behavior in both along-wind and across-wind responses on a super tall building was investigated by an aeroelastic model test. The aerodynamic damping ratio was evaluated from the wind-induced responses of the model by using Random Decrement (RD) technique. Further, various triggering levels in evaluation of aerodynamic damping ratios using RD technique were also examined. As a result, it was found that when at least 2000 segments were used for evaluating aerodynamic damping ratio for ensemble averaging, the aerodynamic damping ratio can be obtained more consistently with lower irregular fluctuations. This is good agreement with those of previous studies. Another notable observation was that for square and helical $180^{\circ}$ models, the aerodynamic damping ratios in along-wind direction showed similar linear trends with reduced wind speeds regarding of building shapes. On the other hand, for the helical $180^{\circ}$ model, the aerodynamic damping ratio in across-wind direction showed quite different trends with those of the square model. In addition, the aerodynamic damping ratios of the helical $180^{\circ}$ model showed very similar trends with respect to the change of wind direction, and showed gradually increasing trends having small fluctuations with reduced wind speeds. Another observation was that in definition of triggering levels in RD technique on aerodynamic damping ratios, it may be possible to adopt the triggering levels of "standard deviation" or "${\sqrt{2}}$ times of the standard deviation" of the response time history if RD functions have a large number of triggering points. Further, these triggering levels may result in similar values and distributions with reduced wind speeds and either may be acceptable.