A CFD/CSD interaction methodology for aircraft wings

With advanced subsonic transports and military aircraft operating in the transonic regime, it is becoming important to determine the effects of the coupling between aerodynamic loads and elastic forces. Since aeroelastic effects can significantly impact the design of these aircraft, there is a strong need in the aerospace industry to predict these interactions computationally. Such an analysis in the transonic regime requires high fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis tools, due to the nonlinear behavior of the aerodynamics in the transonic regime and also high fidelity computational structural dynamics (CSD) analysis tools. Also, there is a need to be able to use a wide variety of CFD and CSD methods to predict aeroelastic effects. Since source codes are not always available, it is necessary to couple the CFD and CSD codes without alteration of the source codes. In this study, an aeroelastic coupling procedure is developed to determine the static aeroelastic response of aircraft wings using any CFD and CSD code with little code integration. The aeroelastic coupling procedure is demonstrated on an F/A-18 Stabilator using NASTD (an in-house McDonnell Douglas CFD code) and NASTRAN. In addition, the Aeroelastic Research Wing (ARW-2) is used for demonstration of the aeroelastic coupling procedure by using ENSAERO (NASA Ames Research Center CFD code) and a finite element wing-box code. The results obtained from the present study are compared with those available from an experimental study conducted at NASA Langley Research Center and a study conducted at NASA Ames Research Center using ENSAERO and modal superposition. The results compare well with experimental data

Health monitoring of buildings during construction and service stages using vibration characteristics

Columns and walls in buildings are subjected to a number of load increments during the construction and service stages. The combination of these load increments and poor quality construction can cause defects in these structural components. In addition, defects can also occur due to accidental or deliberate actions by users of the building during construction and service stages. Such defects should be detected early so that remedial measures can be taken to improve life time serviceability and performance of the building. This paper uses micro and macro model upgrading methods during construction and service stages of a building based on the mass and stiffness changes to develop a comprehensive procedure for locating and detecting defects in columns and walls of buildings. Capabilities of the procedure are illustrated through examples