TIME AND FREQUENCY DOMAIN FLUTTER SOLUTIONS FOR THE AGARD 445.

6 WING
Ryan J. Beaubien1, Fred Nitzsche1, and Daniel Feszty1
1

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Carleton University 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada e-mail: fnitzsch@mae.carleton.ca

Key words: Aeroelasticity, CFD, Flutter, Time Domain. Abstract. Time marching simulations using the Euler and Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations have been performed for the AGARD 445.6 wing in transonic flow. These simulations have been compared to experimental results as well as a frequency domain solution using the Doublet-Lattice Method. The time marching simulations show good comparison to the experimental results unlike the frequency domain solution, in accordance with previous works. 1 INTRODUCTION The most widely used method for flutter certification is based on linearized aerodynamic potential theory, specifically, the Doublet-Lattice Method (DLM)1. This method is available in various commercial software packages such as the Aeroelastic module for MSC/NASTRAN. However, a major disadvantage of the DLM is that it fails to capture the location and magnitude of local shock waves and the associated shock wave-boundary layer interactions on the wing surface in the transonic regime. The prediction of these phenomena are crucial for assessing the aeroelastic behaviour of a wing in transonic flow as they are the source for several nonlinear aeroelastic effects, such as the transonic dip and limit cycle oscillations. A solution to this problem is to complete a time marching analysis where a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver is coupled with a Computational Structural Dynamics (CSD) solver. In these simulations, the structure is given an initial velocity in one of the dominant modes and the subsequent time evolution of the modal response is calculated to see whether it grows or decays2. The flow may be simulated by solving the Euler or Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. The computational cost is not unreasonable when the intention is to examine behaviour at previously identified problem conditions3. However, for unknown problem conditions, i.e., defining the flutter boundary of a new wing, this method is extremely expensive thus negating its use in a production environment. The purpose of this paper is to compare the flutter boundary obtained from using DLM aerodynamics in a frequency domain analysis with the time marching analysis using Euler and RANS equations for a wing in the transonic regime. 2 TEST CASE The AGARD 445.6 wing was selected as the test case since flutter measurements are available for a wide range of Mach numbers4. Results have also been published in various papers on computational aeroelasticity, including Goura2, Badcock3 and Melville5. The wing has a quarter chord sweep of 45, an aspect ratio of 1.65, a taper ratio of 0.66 and a constant NACA 65A004 symmetric profile. The experiment was conducted in the NASA Langley

Transonic Dynamics Tunnel and the results were published in 1963. Various wing models were tested; the case most commonly used in computational aeroelasticity papers is the weakened wing model at zero angle of attack in air. This model was constructed of laminated mahogany and had holes drilled through the wing to reduce its stiffness. Flutter speed coefficients, U, for Mach numbers in the range of 0.338 to 1.141 were reported4. The flutter speed coefficient is expressed as: U = U / ( bs 1/2 ) (1)

where U is the freestream velocity at flutter, bs is the semispan, = 39.44 Hz is the frequency of the first torsional mode (39.44 Hz) and = m/( V) where m = 1.693 kg is the mass of the wing, V = 0.130 m2 is related to the volume of the wing and is the freestream density at flutter. Time marching simulations will also be run for an angle of attack of 5 in order to test the ability of the simulations to capture significant nonlinear effects. Note that no experimental data is available for this particular case. 3 FREQUENCY DOMAIN SOLUTIONS USING MSC/NASTRAN The flutter analysis in MSC/NASTRAN is conducted in the frequency domain. The solution involves a series of complex eigenvalue solutions. MSC/NASTRAN provides three methods of analysis: the American (K) method, a restricted but more efficient American (KE) method and the British (PK) method. The PK-method was selected as it also provides approximate estimates of system damping at subcritical speeds which is useful for monitoring flight tests6. 3.1 Structural Model The linear structural model for the 445.6 wing was created in MSC/NASTRAN using the model parameters in the aeroelastic optimization study by Kolonay7. This model was selected for comparative purposes as it was also used by Goura2, Badcock3 and Melville4 for time marching studies. The wing is modelled with plate elements as a single layer orthotropic material. The model consisted of 231 nodes and 200 elements (Fig. 1). The thickness distribution was governed by the airfoil shape. The material properties used were E1 = 3.1511 GPa, E2 = 0.4162 GPa, = 0.31, G = 0.4392 GPa and = 381.98 kg/m3 where E1 and E2 are the moduli of elasticity in the longitudinal and lateral directions, is Poisson's ratio, G is the shear modulus in each plane and is the wing density7. Table 1 compares the measured and calculated first four fundamental modes and Fig. 2 shows the calculated mode shapes.

Figure 1: AGARD 445.6 structural model.

Mode 1 [Hz] Experiment Kolonay Goura

2 7 4

Mode 2 [Hz] 38.10 37.12 36.87 39.44

Mode 3 [Hz] 50.70 50.50 50.26 49.71

Mode 4 [Hz] 98.50 89.94 90.00 94.39

9.60 9.63 9.67 9.46

Calculated

Table 1: Comparison of modal frequencies for AGARD 445.6 wing.

Mode 1 (1-B)

Mode 2 (1-T)

Mode 3 (2-B) Figure 2: AGARD 445.6 structural model.

Mode 4 (2-T)

Using the density and model definition of Kolonay7 resulted in a wing mass of 1.693 kg, 9% lighter than the Kolonay model. The mass of the Kolonay model was equal to the experimental model. The modes and mode shapes showed good comparison between all three models, thus the density was not adjusted to match the wing mass. The linear structural model was used for both the Euler and RANS time marching as well as the MSC/NASTRAN simulations. No structural damping is possible for the time marching solutions. Thus, for comparative purposes, the structural damping for the NASTRAN model was set to zero. 3.2 Aerodynamic Model A linear aerodynamic model was created for the DLM. The wing is modelled by panels and the lifting surfaces are assumed to lie nearly parallel to the flow. DLM does not account for thickness effects of the lifting surfaces and assumes the undisturbed flow is uniform or varying harmonically. The model consisted of 25 points in the spanwise direction and 28 points in the chordwise direction. The spanwise spacing was set similar to a CFD grid distribution, i.e., concentrated near the tip region. The chordwise point distribution was concentrated at the leading edge distribution while maintaining the recommended three-to-one box ratio6. This model was adequate for the Mach numbers below 1.0; however, it grossly under predicted the flutter speed for higher Mach numbers. A second model was created with box ratios close to unity as recommended by Ref. 6. This model possessed the same number of boxes as the previous model.

4 TIME MARCHING SIMULATIONS The time marching simulations were performed using the PMB (Parallel Multi-block) code developed at the University of Glasgow. This code features a finite-volume Euler and RANS CFD solver with a proved capability of accurately capturing transonic effects2,3. 4.1 Mesh Generation For the Euler calculations, an O-O grid was used whereas a C-H grid was generated for the RANS calculations. The spanwise grid densities of the structured, multiblocked grids were increased towards the tip based on the grid convergence study by Badcock3. Medium and coarse grids were created for the O-O and C-H grids. The medium and coarse O-O grids had 190,000 and 27,000 nodes respectively, with 4453 and 1131 points on the wing surface. The medium and coarse C-H grids had 324,000 and 45,000 points respectively, with 2862 and 979 points on the wing surface. A zoom of the root airfoil section for each medium grid is shown in Fig. 3.

Figure 3: C-H and O-O grid topologies for the RANS and Euler simulations, respectively.

4.2 Numerical Method PMB uses a cell centred finite volume technique to solve the Euler and RANS equations. The diffusive terms are discretized using a central differencing scheme and the convective terms use Roe's scheme with MUSCL interpolation offering third-order accuracy. Steady flow calculations proceed in two parts, initially running an explicit scheme to smooth out the flow solution, then switching to an implicit scheme to obtain faster convergence. The preconditioning is based on block incomplete lower-upper surface factorization and is also decoupled between blocks to increase the parallel performance. The linear system arising at each implicit step is solved using a generalized conjugate gradient method8. There are several turbulent models available in the code, including the Spalart-Allmaras, k-, k- and SST models8, although in the present work only laminar calculations were performed. For aeroelastic simulations, the flow domain is deforming which is achieved by interpolating the boundary displacements to interior points. Grid speeds and transformation Jacobians are calculated by finite differencing. Cell volumes are recalculated using a global conservation law by considering volume fluxes through cell sides, the so-called Geometric Conservation Law (GCL). The internal volume of the wing is kept constant by the Constant Volume Tetrahedron (CVT) method. Full details can be found in Ref. 8.

4.3 Verification of the Numerical Method A grid convergence study was conducted for a steady case at zero angle of attack, Mach number of 0.96 and a Reynolds' Number of 4.51x105 (based on mean aerodynamic chord). The results for the Euler and RANS solutions are shown in Fig. 4 for four wing stations. Both the medium and coarse grids show good agreement for the respective topologies. The Euler and RANS solutions show disagreement near the trailing edge of the wing.
Span = 0.0% -0.2 0 0.2 Cp Cp 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0.4 -0.2 Span = 25.0%

0.2

0.4 x/c

0.6

0.8

0.6

0.2

0.4 x/c

0.6

0.8

Span = 90.0% -0.2 -0.2

Span = 95.0%

Cp

0.2

Cp

0.2 RANS Coarse RANS Medium Euler Coarse Euler Medium 0 0.2 0.4 x/c 0.6 0.8 1

0.4

0.4

0.6

0.2

0.4 x/c

0.6

0.8

0.6

Figure 4: Grid convergence study for AGARD 445.6 wing (M = 0.96, Re = 4.51x105, = 0). Pressure coefficients shown for the upper wing surface.

5 COMPARISION OF MEASURED AND CALCULATED RESULTS 5.1 Grid Density and Fluid Model Effect on Flutter Speed The comparison of the time marching solutions at Mach 0.96 (near the bottom of the transonic dip) to various published grid densities and fluid models is shown in Table 2.
Reference Current Current Badcock3 Melville5 Grid Volume Medium Coarse Medium Coarse Fine Medium Coarse Fine Medium Coarse Fluid Model RANS Euler Euler RANS Flutter Speed Coefficient 0.308 0.327 0.317 0.330 0.175 0.192 0.227 0.314 0.304 0.285

Table 2: Comparison of flutter speed coefficients at Mach 0.96 for various grids.

The results of Melville5 show a 6% downward trend in the flutter speed between the medium and coarse grids. The current results show an upwards trend (6% for RANS, 4% for Euler), similar to the results of Badcock3. The Euler and RANS solutions show good agreement for each grid density. 5.2 Flutter Boundary for Zero Angle of Attack The flutter speed coefficients for Mach 0.499 to 1.072 for the current methods, previously published results by Goura2 and the experimental results are shown in Fig. 5. The coarse grid time domain Euler and RANS simulations produced similar flutter boundaries for the subsonic and transonic regime. These boundaries also exhibit a shape similar to the experimental results. The difference may be attributed to the lack of structural damping in the time domain solutions. Previous results have shown using a value of structural damping of 0.5% will shift the boundary towards the experimental results3. The transonic dip is more pronounced in Goura's2 results than the experimental and time domain Euler and RANS solutions. The MSC/NASTRAN solution using DLM aerodynamics produced a significantly higher flutter boundary. This disagreement was expected as current industry practice is to alter the aerodynamic data by incorporating wind tunnel data or steady state CFD results9,10. The velocity-damping (V-g) and velocity-frequency (V-f) plots for Mach 0.499 are shown in Figs. 6 and 7. The mechanism of flutter for all tested Mach numbers is between modes 1 (first bending) and 2 (first torsion).
0.50 0.48 0.46 0.44 Flutter Speed Coefficient 0.42 0.40 0.38 0.36 0.34 0.32 0.30 0.28 0.45 Experiment Time Marching, Euler Time Marching, RANS Nastran DLM Goura, Euler

0.50

0.55

0.60

0.65

0.70

0.75

0.80

0.85

0.90

0.95

1.00

1.05

1.10

Mach Number

Figure 5: Flutter boundary for the AGARD 445.6 wing ( = 0).

0.5 Mode 1 (1-B) Mode 2 (1-T) Mode 3 (2-B) Mode 4 (2-T)

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1 Damping

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4

-0.5 50

100

150 Velocity (m/s)

200

250

Figure 6: V-g plot for the AGARD 445.6 wing using MSC/NASTRAN (M = 0.499).

100

90

80

70

Frequency (Hz)

60

50

40

30

20 Mode 1 (1-B) Mode 2 (1-T) Mode 3 (2-B) Mode 4 (2-T) 100 150 Velocity (m/s) 200 250

10

0 50

Figure 7: V-f plot for the AGARD 445.6 wing using MSC/NASTRAN (M = 0.499).

It is interesting to note that the runtimes for the time domain simulations were quite acceptable. On a cluster of four 3.2 GHz machines, the average simulation time required to calculate each flutter data point was 40 minutes and 50 minutes, using Euler and RANS equations, respectively. The entire flutter boundary required approximately 2.5 hours and 3.5 hours to complete. 5.3 Flutter Boundary for = 5 The time domain solutions were also ran for an angle of attack of 5 where nonlinear effects are even more pronounced. The flutter speed coefficients for Mach 0.678 to 1.072 are shown in Fig. 8. The Euler and RANS solutions diverge after Mach 0.901. At this angle of attack, the shock-boundary layer interaction becomes significant and the Euler solution is unable to capture these effects.
0.42 0.40 0.38 0.36 Flutter Speed Coefficient 0.34 0.32 0.30 0.28 0.26 0.24 0.22 0.20 0.65 Time Marching, Euler Time Marching, RANS

0.70

0.75

0.80

0.85

0.90

0.95

1.00

1.05

1.10

Mach Number

Figure 8: Time marching flutter boundary for the AGARD 445.6 wing ( = 5).

6 CONCLUSION Flutter results were obtained for the AGARD 445.6 wing in the time domain, using the Euler and RANS equations, as well as in the frequency domain, using DLM aerodynamics and MSC/NASTRAN. The following conclusions can be drawn from the study: (1) for transonic flow conditions with insignificant nonlinear effects, the time domain Euler and RANS simulations produce similar flutter boundaries; (2) Euler solutions are unable to produce accurate flutter boundaries when the nonlinear flow effects are significant, thus the RANS equations must be used for these cases; and, (3) unreliable transonic flutter boundaries are produced from frequency based solvers using unaltered DLM aerodynamics.

7 REFERENCES [1] Yurkovich, R., "Status of unsteady aerodynamic prediction for flutter of highperformance aircraft", Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 40, No. 5, 2003, pp. 832-842. [2] Goura, G. S. L., "Time marching analysis of flutter using Computational Fluid Dynamics", Ph. D. thesis, University of Glasgow, 2001. [3] Badcock, K. J., Woodgate, M. A. and Richards, B. E., "Direct aeroelastic bifurcation analysis of a symmetric wing based on the Euler equations", Technical Report 0315, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Glasgow, 2003. [4] Yates, E. C., "AGARD standard aeroelastic configurations for dynamic response I-wing 445.6", AGARD Report 765, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Group for Aerospace Research and Development, 1988. [5] Gordnier, R.E. and Melville, R.B., "Transonic flutter simulations using an implicit aeroelastic solver", Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 37, No. 5, 2000, pp. 872-879. [6] Rodden, W. P. and Johnson, E. H., MSC/NASTRAN Aeroelastic Analysis User's Guide, Version 68, The MacNeal-Schwendler Corp., 1994. [7] Kolonay, R. M., "Unsteady aeroelastic optimization in the transonic regime", Ph. D. thesis, Purdue University, 1996. [8] Goura, G. S. L., Badcock, K. J., Woodgate, M. A. and Richards, B. E., "Implicit methods for the time marching analysis of flutter", Aeronautical Journal, Vol. 105, 2001, pp. 199215. [9] McCain, W. E., "Measured and calculated airloads on a transport wing model", Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 22, No. 4, 1985, pp. 336-342. [10] Pitt, D. M. and Goodman, C. E., "Flutter calculations using doublet lattice aerodynamics modified by the full potential equations", Paper No. AIAA-87-0882, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., 1987, pp. 506-512.