Efficient interfacing of fluid and structure for aeroelastic instability predictions

An efficient procedure for multidisciplinary computation of fluid and struc ture interaction problems of aerospace vehicles is presented. It features t he use of Meshless Methods, Finite Elements, Rayleigh-Ritz, and Kernel Func tions enabling the aeroelastic requirements to be included in design withou t demanding prohibitive computational efforts. Improvements made are in ter ms of choosing meshless fluid-structure interface for displacement and aero dynamic load transfer, including nine modes in Rayleigh-Ritz, introducing G radient Adaptive Transfinite: Element in Finite Element model, and taking i nto account deformations of structure in aerodynamic load calculations. Num erical results are presented for flutter and divergence type aeroelastic re sponses of lifting surfaces constructed of advanced composites and supper a lloys at subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic flight velocities. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.