Author(s)

Yingge Ni, Yu Yang, Wei Zhang

Corresponding Author

Yingge Ni

Abstract

The incremental harmonic balance method is extended to the analysis of the periodic response for an aeroelastic system with piecewise structural nonlinearity. The process of the incremental harmonic balance method is derived for such a system. The nonlinear terms are studied to convert the nonlinear aeroelastic equation to a set of algebraic equations, which can provide an idea for solution of other nonlinearities. In order to accelerate the convergence of the solution to algebraic equations, the dominant frequency component in the response is achieved by the fast Fourier transform of the numerical solution, which can avoid the blind assumption of the nonlinear aeroelastic system solution. Finally, the solution of the aeroelastic response with piecewise structural nonlinearity via the incremental harmonic balance method is achieved. The results are in good agreement with numerical results obtained by the Runge-Kutta method. The comparison verifies the correctness of the proposed method. The effect of the numbers of harmonics on the solution precision, as well as the effect of the free-play and stiffness ratio on the response amplitude, is discussed. The incremental harmonic balance method is very effective for a piecewise structural nonlinear aeroelastic system, and its application is expanded.

Keywords

Incremental Harmonic Balance Method, Two-Dimensional Airfoil, Aeroelasticity, Piecewise Structural Nonlinearities, Fast Fourier Transform