Investigating amplitude death in a coupled nonlinear aeroelastic system

Coupling nonlinear dynamical systems can lead to a host of phenomena, one of which leads to the complete cessation of their oscillations. This phenomenon is referred to as amplitude death (AD) in the dynamical systems literature. Recently, there is a growing interest to mitigate oscillatory or dynamic instabilities in a variety of engineering systems using AD. Deriving impetus from the same, we investigate the possibility of cessation of oscillatory instabilities in aeroelastic systems using the concept of AD. In specific, the suppression of flutter instability that arises in aeroelastic systems due to highly nonlinear fluid-structure interactions is investigated from the purview of AD. To that end, we consider two identical airfoils that are exposed to input fluid forces along the axial directions. The airfoils, via translational and rotational springs, are allowed to oscillate in plunge and pitch degrees of freedom. To augment the findings to in-field scenarios, we consider the individual cases of the input flow to be either uniform (deterministic) or possess randomly time varying components, respectively. To promote coupled interactions, the airfoils are coupled using a linear torsional spring. The coupled interaction of the airfoils at the flutter regime are then studied by obtaining the pitch and plunge responses. Further, the strength of the coupling and the time delay between the airfoils are systematically varied to investigate its effect on the regime of AD. The ability of AD to suppress flutter instability and thereby serve as a possible flutter suppression mechanism in both deterministic and stochastic input flow cases is then demonstrated. Finally, the phase delay values between the airfoils is computed to heuristically present a relationship between the coupling parameters and the post coupling signatures.

Automated summary

The study explores the possibility of using the concept of Amplitude Death (AD) to suppress oscillatory instabilities in aeroelastic systems, specifically focusing on flutter instability caused by nonlinear fluid-structure interactions. Coupling two airfoils together, the effects of coupling strength and time delay on the regime of AD are systematically varied to investigate their impact on flutter suppression. The findings demonstrate that AD can effectively suppress flutter instability and serve as a potential mechanism for flutter suppression in both deterministic and stochastic input flow scenarios.