An effective computer modelling approach to the study of aeroelastic characteristics of an aircraft composite wing with high aspect ratio

Static aeroelastic and flutter characteristics of an aircraft composite wing with high aspect ratio were analysed by an effective Computational Fluid Dynamics and Computational Structure Dynamics coupled method. Effects of stiffness distribution on aeroelastic characteristics were considered. Honeycomb core sandwich composite was considered to be equivalent to an orthotropic material by stiffness and inertance equivalent method to allow highly efficient numerical simulation, which was used for analysis of bending and torsional stiffness distribution. The results showed that the redistributed aerodynamic load leads to a decrease of pressure difference between the upper and lower airfoils. The flutter speed of the composite wing is near 0.64 Ma. Both bending and torsional stiffness increases with a small increase of beam size. Stiffness of the wing root has a major influence generally on the static aeroelastic characteristics. Both the lift coefficient and the loss percent decrease with a small increase of beam size. Effects of stiffness distribution on frequency are not obvious. Flutter speed remains close to the initial value when the beam size is changed.