Panel Flutter Investigation including Thermal Effects through the FEM

Resumo

Thermal effects in aeroelastic stability are of the main concern of super and hypersonic vehicles, since
the aerodynamic heating causes, with the rise of temperature, the degradation of elastic properties of the material
and, in addition, compressive stresses due to thermal expansion, which can make flutter more critical. In recent
decades authors have developed non-linear methods in order to verify this behaviour. This paper aims to verify if
the use of the FEM in a two steps analysis employing the Nastran software with a non-linear heat transfer analysis
and subsequent eigenvalue flutter analysis can produce results agreeable with the literature. It is used in the linear
third-order Piston Theory with Van Dyke’s correction for aerodynamic modelling and the Mindlin-Reissner plate
theory for structural modelling. The PK method is used to solve the aeroelastic eigenvalue problem in a range of

flow conditions in order to determine the instability boundary. The results are obtained from a metallic simple-
supported square panel.