Stabilization of an Unstable Aeroelastic System: an Experimental Demonstration of Damping Augmentation
In the pursuit of more efficient aviation, the aerospace industry is moving toward aircraft designs characterized by high-aspect-ratio and highly flexible wings. While these designs offer significant aerodynamic advantages, they may be more prone to present lightly damped modes or even unstable aeroelastic modal coupling. If this occurs, structural stiffening or mass redistribution are conventionally employed to mitigate the resulting structural vibrations or even suppress instabilities. This represents a passive method of achieving damping augmentation. A more appealing approach is the use of active technologies to deflect the aircraft’s control surfaces in such a manner that the oscillations are effectively damped. This concept is known as Active Flutter Suppression (AFS) or active damping augmentation and it is regarded as a more weight-efficient solution. However, transitioning these technologies from theory to commercial reality requires rigorous, safe experimental validation.
