Multifidelity sensitivity study of subsonic wing flutter for hybrid approaches in aircraft multidisciplinary design and optimisation

Abstract

A comparative sensitivity study for the flutter instability of aircraft wings in subsonic flow is presented, using analytical models and numerical tools with different multidisciplinary approaches. The analyses build on previous elegant works and encompass parametric variations of aero-structural properties, quantifying their effect on the aeroelastic stability boundary. Differences in the multifidelity results are critically assessed from both theoretical and computational perspectives, in view of possible practical applications within airplane preliminary design and optimisation. A robust hybrid strategy is then recommended, wherein the flutter boundary is obtained using a higher-fidelity approach while the flutter sensitivity is computed adopting a lower-fidelity approach.