Optimal locations of piezoelectric patches for supersonic flutter control of honeycomb sandwich panels, using the NSGA-II method

The active flutter control of supersonic sandwich panels with regular honeycomb interlayers under impact load excitation is studied using piezoelectric patches. A non-dominated sorting-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, called non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) is suggested to find the optimal locations for different numbers of piezoelectric actuator/sensor pairs. Quasi-steady first order supersonic piston theory is employed to define aerodynamic loading and the p-method is applied to find the flutter bounds. Hamilton's principle in conjunction with the generalized Fourier expansions and Galerkin method are used to develop the dynamical model of the structural systems in the state-space domain. The classical Runge-Kutta time integration algorithm is then used to calculate the open-loop aeroelastic response of the system. The maximum flutter velocity and minimum voltage applied to actuators are calculated according to the optimal locations of piezoelectric patches obtained using the NSGA-II and then the proportional feedback is used to actively suppress the closed loop system response. Finally the control effects, using the two different controllers, are compared.