An inertially-coupled formulation for the flight dynamics of flexible aircraft undergoing small deformations is developed. The availability of a structural-dynamic finite element model of the aircraft is presupposed. With all the coupled dynamics taken into account, an arbitrary choice of the body reference frame can be made. This frame is also allowed to be noncoincident with the frame of reference used to calculate the aerodynamic loads. In the equations of motion, the inertial coupling terms are linearized in the elastic displacements around a calculated equilibrium condition. Appropriate modes of vibration are then used in the calculation of the dynamic deformation of the structure. A simple quasi-steady incremental aerodynamic model based on the vortex-lattice method is used. The formulation is tested in the flight simulation of an idealized forward-swept-wing aircraft model. Numerical results show that, under small deformations, different body axes lead to the same overall motion of the aircraft with respect to an inertial frame. The stiffness level at which geometrically nonlinear formulations would become necessary is also determined.

In this work we perform reactive control of stochastic disturbances in forced turbulent jets based on destructive interference. The study is motivated by the success of recent studies in applying this type of control on instability waves in transitional boundary layers and free-shear flows. Linear convective mechanisms in the initial region of turbulent jets are explored in order to perform reactive control, wherein the actuation signal is updated in real time based on sensor measurements performed upstream, resulting in an inverse feedforward approach. The control law is based on empirical transfer functions of the jet response to stochastic forcing and actuation, which are measured experimentally. Since turbulent jets have energy content spread in a number of azimuthal wave numbers, we apply axisymmetric forcing at the nozzle lip in order to be able to perform control using a reduced number of sensors and actuators. The external forcing produces axisymmetric wave packets which possess stochastic phases and amplitudes, akin to turbulent fluctuations found in unforced jets. We demonstrate the successful implementation of real-time reactive control of these disturbances, achieving order-of-magnitude attenuations of associated velocity fluctuations. Control is shown to reduce fluctuation levels over an extensive streamwise range.

The paper presents a methodology for modeling the coupled flight dynamics with aeroelasticity in the time domain. The equations of motion are based on linearized mean-axes formulation. Unsteady, incremental aerodynamics due to elastic deformations are modeled in the time domain, applying the strip theory and a indicial function. The methodology is demonstrated with a prototype of the utility aircraft Stemme S15. Comparisons between the simulation and the flight-test data regarding the added aeroelastic dynamics have indicated that the model is suited for the flight control law and aircraft design, and that care must be taken in modeling the control surface lift slope for low-aspect-ratio lifting surfaces.

In this paper, the control law design for flexible aircraft is discussed. First, the traditional procedure of decoupling rigid-body and aeroelastic dynamics with low-pass and notch filters is addressed, with focus on controller performance as well as the resulting stability margin issues. A procedure based on a unified formulation of the flexible aircraft dynamics for flight control law design is proposed. In this procedure, the aeroservoelastic dynamics is assessed in the loop, and the offline filtering process is avoided. The formulation is applied to the virtual aircraft generic narrow-body airliner, with improvements in closed-loop performance and stability margins.