INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ROPAR

VIBRATION IN AIRFOILS
MEL417

NOISE AND VIBRATION

DONE BY
NEKKANTI AKHIL 2012MEB1106
DUDDELA SAI HARISH 2012MEB1096

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

DR. NAVIN KUMAR

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to Professor Dr. Navin Kumar who gave
me a golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic “Vibrational Analysis of
Airfoils”. This helped me gain a lot of unknown information. . We are very thankful that he
supervised our work and provided with the much needed assistance in understanding the project
It also enhanced my knowledge about airfoils and gave us an idea about the considerations to put
in mind during the design of airfoil and aircraft. Beside this we would like to thank lab assistant
Mr Amit Kamboj who literally helped us to a very large extent and without his aid we wouldn’t
have been able to shape up the project in this manner like we had now. Apart from this we would
like to thank our institution for providing a state of art facility laboratory equipped with all the
instruments required for the project and we don’t think we will be able to do justice if we don’t
mention our batch-mates who did help us at different stages of the project.

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 ABSTRACT
In this study, vibrational modes of NACA-0024 airfoils are analyzed using a vibration controller
with the help of an accelerometer. Airfoil of dimensions of chord length 14.5 cm, thickness of
3.5 cm and a width of 30 cm has been used in this study. This was modelled in ABAQUS and the
frequencies were verified with the experimental data. The Strain energy plots in ABAQUS gave
an indication about where the patches have to be located in order to decrease the vibrations. The
data with 1, 2, 3 viscoelastic patches were taken and analyzed. Results revealed that on addition
of patches the vibration decreased. This was visualized in the Frequency domain graphs which
also showed a decrease in amplitude of the 1st and 2nd modal amplitude with the addition of
patches. From the frequency obtained for the 1st and 2nd modes the vibration controller was
operated at these frequencies to visualize the modal shapes.

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 CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 5
a) What is airfoil
b) Literature review
2. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP 7
3. RESULTS 8
4. CFD ANALYSIS OF AN AIRFOIL 13
5. CONCLUSION and DISCUSSION 14
6. REFERENCES 15

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 Introduction
An Aircraft's wings, horizontal, and vertical stabilizers are built with airfoil-shaped cross
sections, as are helicopter rotor blades. Airfoils are also found in
propellers, fans, compressors and turbines. Any object with an angle of attack in a moving fluid,
will generate an aerodynamic force called lift that is perpendicular to the flow. Airfoils are more
efficient lifting shapes and are able to generate more lift and less drag.
The design of airfoil is a major facet of aerodynamics and aircrafts. Various airfoils serve
different purposes of flight. Airfoils that are asymmetric can generate lift at zero angle of attack,
whereas a symmetric airfoil needs an angle of attack to generate lift.

The wings provide lift by creating a situation where the pressure above the wing is lower than
the pressure below the wing. Since the pressure below the wing is higher than the pressure above
the wing, there is a net force upwards. To create this pressure difference, the surface of the wing
must satisfy one or both of the following conditions. The wing surface must be Cambered or
Inclined relative to the airflow direction.

The geometry of the airfoil is described with a variety of terms:

1. The leading edge is the point at the front of the airfoil that has maximum curvature
2. The trailing edge is defined similarly as the point of maximum curvature at the rear of the
airfoil.
3. The chord line is the straight line connecting leading and trailing edges. The chord
length, or simply chord, is the length of the chord line. That is the reference dimension of
the airfoil section.
4. The mean camber line or mean line is the locus of point’s midway between the upper and
lower surfaces. Its shape depends on the thickness distribution along the chord;

Figure 1: Airfoil Profile and its Nomenclature

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In an airfoil flow induced vibration play an important role in the design of airfoil. Flow of fluid
around structures can cause destructive vibrations and also causes useful motion. Fluid flow
causes deformations in the structure, these deformations may change the orientation of the
structure to the fluid flow and hence the force acting on the body also changes. Flutter includes
torsion instability along with aerodynamics vibrations and dynamic load redistribution [1]. In our
study there was an attempt to visualize Flutter in airfoils but were unable to carry out the
experiment due to lack of wind tunnel

Literature Review
In vibration analysis it is necessary that system is discretized into small elements so that the
stiffness and mass or inertia matrices of individual elements can be computed easily. Thus the
original equation of the motion of system of governing equations can be solved for finding out
the Modal frequencies and Modal shapes.
The general equation of motion for a damped vibration structure is given by

A lot of work has been done recently on the flutter and flow induced vibration of airfoil. Both
Numerical analysis as well as mathematical modelling has been done in this field which includes
to a large extent of CFD analysis of turbulent flow on airfoil [2]. The studies conducted by Kim
et al. involved the modeling of the airfoil as a finite beam elements with the help of two spring
elements in pitch and plunge movements, by the help of frequency and time domain approach
they have inferred there was chaotic motion by pitch to plunge frequency ratio [3]. Previously
some work has been done on the effect of aspect ratio and thickness on the natural frequency of
the airfoil by the help of Frequency Element Approach. This work has indicated that on
increasing the aspect ratio the natural increased in all the modes however due to thickness the
natural frequency first decreased and then increased [4].

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 Experimental Setup
A NACA-0024 Airfoil has been used for this experiment. The airfoil dimensions have been
given in Table 1. The airfoil was placed on an Sdyn vibration controller. Initially a piezoelectric
accelerometer was mounted on the airfoil and was initiated by an external force. LabVIEW
based program was used for the acquiring the data from the Data Acquisition System and for
obtaining both Time and frequency domain data by the use a FFT. From the data acquired the
airfoil was the vibrated at the 1st and 2nd modal frequencies with the vibrational controller and the
modal shapes were observed. These modal shapes were later verified with the modelled data in
ABAQUS. The Experimental setup is shown below in Figure 2. Depending on the strain energy
plots in ABAQUS the patches were placed and the readings were taken accordingly.

As the data was being taken, Acceleration vs. Time graphs was being drawn by the LabVIEW
interface. Seeing it the experimenter gets a good initial perspective on if the data was relatively
good or bad. It helps the experimenter take the judgment whether to keep the set or take a new
one. Double impact is inevitable during the experiment and these graphs come in handy as two
peaks are in the Time domain data are easily seen.

Airfoil Characteristics Specifications

Chord length 14.5 cm
Maximum Thickness 3.5 cm
Aspect ratio 2.0689
Material Aluminum
Table 1:

Figure 2 : Experimental Setup Airfoil mounted over a vibration controller

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 RESULTS
From the Frequency domain data (shown in graph 1) it is clearly observed that the first
modal frequency is at 16.4 hertz and the second and third modal frequencies were at 114
and 186 Hz respectively. The system has internal damping. 𝜀1 𝜀2 𝜀3 are calculated from
the half power method as 𝜀1 = (16.9-16.3)/2*16.4=0.01829 similarly 𝜀2 = 0.041 and 𝜀3 =
0.0431

Frequency Domain Without any Patches.

4.50E-02
4.00E-02
A
m 3.50E-02
p 3.00E-02
l 2.50E-02
i
2.00E-02
t Series1
u 1.50E-02
d 1.00E-02
e 5.00E-03
0.00E+00
0 100 200 300 400
Frequency

The Elastic strain energy plots obtained from ABAQUS are shown below. These give a
clear indication that the Strain energy is maximum near the end of the airfoil that has
been fixed.

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 Figure 3: Depicting the Strain energy for 1st mode.

Figure 4: Representing the Strain energy for 2nd mode.

Now according to the ELSE plots the viscous patches had been placed initially only one
patch was placed corresponding to the position of highest magnitude in the 1st mode case.

Figure 5: Patch was placed corresponding to Maximum strain energy of the 1st mode.

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 1 Patch corresponding to 1st mode
3.00E-02

A 2.50E-02
m
p 2.00E-02
l
i 1.50E-02
t Series1
u 1.00E-02
d
5.00E-03
e

0.00E+00
0 100 200 300 400
Frequency

Graph 2: Amplitude vs frequency when 1 patch is added to the system that corresponds to
the first mode.

Graph 2 represents the decrease in amplitude of acceleration when a patch was added
corresponding to the first frequency. The 1ST mode Amplitude decreased from 0.0207 to
0.0157 and also the 2nd mode amplitude decreased from 0.0402 to 0.0271. This indicates
that increasing viscous damping reduces the vibrations. This is further supported by the
fact that 𝜀1 , 𝜀2 have increased to 𝜀1 = 0.0213 𝜀2 = 0.0505.

Graph 3 illustrates the amplitude vs frequency when patches have been added to the
above case i.e 2 patches have been added on the side of the airfoil. In this case there was
a decrease in 1st mode amplitude to 0.01292 and 2nd mode amplitude to 0.01961. The
damping ratios 𝜀1 , 𝜀2 were calculated to be 𝜀1 = 0.0219 𝜀2 = 0.0963. This indicates that
the viscous damping helps us reduce the vibrations drastically and the damping ratios
indicate that the addition of patches in this case has more effect on the amplitude of the
2nd mode than the first.

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 2 Patches
0.025
A
m 0.02
p
0.015
l
i 0.01 Series1
t
u 0.005
d
e 0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Frequency
Graph 3: shows the amplitude vs frequency, the patches were placed as shown in Fig 6

Figure 6: 2 patches were placed to the side of the airfoil to reduce the vibrations of the 2nd
mode

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 3 Patches corresponding to all of 2nd Mode
0.02
A 0.018
m 0.016
p 0.014
l 0.012
i 0.01
t 0.008 Series1
u 0.006
d 0.004
0.002
e
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Frequency
Graph 4: shows the amplitude vs frequency, the patches were placed as shown in Fig 7

Figure 7 Patches were placed on either side of the airfoil to reduce the vibrational
amplitude of the 2nd mode drastically

Graph 4 shows that in this there is a large decrease in amplitude of the 2nd mode. This is
because the patches were placed in the locations where Strain energy was maximum. The
Amplitude decreased to 0.0147 and was observed to be lesser than the 1st modal
amplitude. The damping ratios were calculated to be 𝜀1 = 0.0196 𝜀2 = 0.1003

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 CFD ANALYSIS OF AN AIRFOIL

Figure 8: Figure showing the distribution of velocity around an airfoil with Magnitude of velocity on the left

Figure 9: Figure showing the distribution of vorticity around an airfoil with its Magnitude on the left

The figure 8 shows the variation of velocity around the airfoil. The velocity at the leading edge is
zero this due to the stagnation effect and the velocity increases as we move away from the airfoil
due to boundary layer developed in the vicinity of the airfoil.

The figure 9 shows the variation of vorticity around the airfoil. The vorticity is maximum at the
upper surface of the airfoil due to boundary layer separation and hence vortex formation takes
place.

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 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
The vibration of airfoil is analyzed through experimental tests in laboratory and simulation
model analysis using Abaqus. We found out that the structure of airfoil influences the design of
aircraft wings by changing vibration level possibility. . From the data, two peaks were selected as
potential resonance frequencies to remove from the airfoil. These peaks occurred at 16 and 114
Hz. Other peaks which were also detected but these were higher frequencies which were not
dominant and also these higher frequencies couldn’t be operated in the vibrational controller.

In order to minimize the effects of these resonance frequencies, to the suggested design
improvement is to add damping to the system. Modelling done in ABAQUS helped us add the
visco-elastic patches from the strain energy plots. The addition of these patches had reduced the
vibrations of the system. On addition of patches it was observed that the 1st and 2nd mode
amplitude decreased drastically. These Modal shapes of oscillations were further observed by the help
of vibration controller on setting it at the 16hz. The work done could be extended to analyze flutter of
an airfoil. Some CFD analysis which was done on the airfoil is shown in report but however the coupling
of fluid structure interaction wasn’t done. The

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 REFERENCES
[1] Blevins, R. D. (1977). Flow-induced vibration. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1977.
377 p., 1.

[2] HUANG, D., LI, J., & LIU, Y. (2014). Airfoil Dynamic Stall and Aeroelastic Analysis Based on
Multi-Frequency Excitation Using CFD method.
[3] Kim, S. H., & Lee, I. (1996). Aeroelastic analysis of a flexible airfoil with a freeplay non-
linearity. Journal of Sound and Vibration, 193(4), 823-846.

[4] Purohit, K., & Bhandari, M. (2012). Determination of Natural Frequency of Aerofoil Section
Blades Using Finite Element Approach, Study of Effect of Aspect Ratio and Thickness on Natural
Frequency. Engineering Journal, 17(2), 51-62.

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