This paper investigates the active control of the supersonic flutter motion of an elastically supported rectangular sandwich plate, which has a tunable electrorheological (ER) fluid core and rests on a Winkler–Pasternak elastic foundation, subjected to an arbitrary flow of various yaw angles. The classical thin plate theory is adopted. The ER fluid core is modeled as a first order Kelvin–Voigt material, and the quasi-steady first order supersonic piston theory is employed for the aerodynamic loading. The generalized Fourier expansions in conjunction with Galerkin method are employed to formulate the governing equations in the state-space domain. The critical dynamic pressures at which unstable panel oscillations occur are obtained for a square sandwich plate, with or without an interacting soft/stiff elastic foundation, for selected applied electric field strengths and flow yaw angles. The Runge–Kutta method is then used to calculate the open-loop aeroelastic response of the system in various basic loading configurations. Subsequently, a sliding mode control (SMC) synthesis is set up to actively suppress the closed loop system response in yawed supersonic flight conditions with imposed excitations. The results demonstrate the performance, effectiveness, and insensitivity with respect to the spillover of the proposed SMC-based control system.

In this paper, by using the piezoelectric material, the active aeroelastic flutter characteristics and vibration control of supersonic sandwich panels with different honeycomb interlayers, resting on an elastic foundation, are studied. Classical beam theory along with the Winkler–Pasternak foundation model, and the quasi-steady first order supersonic piston theory are employed in the formulation of the structural theory and aerodynamic loading, respectively. Hamilton's principle in conjunction with the generalized Fourier expansions and Rayleigh–Ritz (RR) method are used to develop the dynamical model of the structural systems in the state–space domain. The aeroelastic flutter bounds are obtained via the p-method. The classical Runge–Kutta integration algorithm is then used to calculate the open-loop aeroelastic response of the system under different loading excitations. Finally, two classical control strategies, including direct proportional feedback and linear-quadratic regulator (LQR) optimal control scheme, are used to actively suppress the closed loop system response, while increasing the flutter aerodynamic pressure.

The active flutter control of supersonic sandwich panels with regular honeycomb interlayers under impact load excitation is studied using piezoelectric patches. A non-dominated sortingbased multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, called non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) is suggested to find the optimal locations for different numbers of piezoelectric actuator/sensor pairs. Quasi-steady first order supersonic piston theory is employed to define aerodynamic loading and the p-method is applied to find the flutter bounds. Hamilton's principle in conjunction with the generalized Fourier expansions and Galerkin method are used to develop the dynamical model of the structural systems in the state-space domain. The classical Runge-Kutta time integration algorithm is then used to calculate the open-loop aeroelastic response of the system. The maximum flutter velocity and minimum voltage applied to actuators are calculated according to the optimal locations of piezoelectric patches obtained using the NSGA-II and then the proportional feedback is used to actively suppress the closed loop system response. Finally the control effects, using the two different controllers, are compared.

Brief reviews on suppressing panel flutter vibrations by various active control strategies as well as utilization tunable electrorheological fluids (ERFs) for vibration control of structural systems are presented. Active suppression of the supersonic flutter motion of a simply supported sandwich panel with a tunable ERF interlayer, and coupled to an elastic foundation, is subsequently investigated. The structural formulation is based on the classical beam theory along with the Winkler–Pasternak foundation model, the ER fluid core is modeled as a first-order Kelvin–Voigt material, and the quasi-steady first-order supersonic piston theory is employed to describe the aerodynamic loading. Hamilton’s principle is used to derive a set of fully coupled dynamic equations of motion. The generalized Fourier expansions in conjunction with the Galerkin method are then employed to formulate the governing equations in the state space domain. The critical dynamic pressures at which unstable panel oscillations (coalescence of eigenvalues) occur are obtained via the p-method for selected applied electric field strengths (E = 0,2,4 kV mm−1). The classical Runge–Kutta time integration algorithm is subsequently used to calculate the open-loop aeroelastic response of the system in various basic loading configurations (i.e. uniformly distributed blast, gust, sonic boom, and step loads), with or without an interacting soft/stiff elastic foundation. Finally, a sliding mode control synthesis (SMC) involving the first six natural modes of the structural system is set up to actively suppress the closed-loop system response in supersonic flight conditions and under the imposed excitations. Simulation results demonstrate performance, effectiveness, and insensitivity with respect to the spillover of the proposed SMC-based control system. Limiting cases are considered and good agreements with the data available in the literature as well as with the computations made by using the Rayleigh–Ritz approach are obtained.

No abstract