Specialists of the Research Institute of Mechanics of Moscow State University have developed a mathematical model and software to calculate the flutter of the propeller blades to replace the American one from Hartzell Propeller Inc. for the light passenger multi-purpose aircraft LMS-901 “Baikal”. The work is carried out in accordance with the contract with the Ural Civil Aviation Plant JSC, the press service of Lomonosov Moscow State University reported.
In designs of modern air propellers composite materials are widely used, providing high mass perfection of the product. However, a significant variation of mechanical characteristics, inherent in composite materials, aggravates the problems of flutter, which is a dangerous phenomenon of aeroelasticity, leading to the destruction of such structural elements as turbine blades, propeller blades or aircraft wing.
Flutter calculation is an important task to be performed at the design stage of a structure. Often it is carried out on the basis of simplified methods, which are not accurate enough to describe modern composite blades of complex shape and do not correspond to the current level of development of computer technology. This necessitates the development of mathematical models and software to predict the stability regions of blades taking into account several forms of natural oscillations.
At present, there is no industrial software commonly used in design bureaus of aircraft propeller blades to determine the flutter boundaries, and therefore flutter calculation is a non-trivial task. Mathematical model and its software implementation for such calculations in three-dimensional formulation takes into account any number of vibration forms and assumes the use of quasi-stationary or unsteady aerodynamic theory. Scientists of the Research Institute of Mechanics of Moscow State University have carried out a study of stability in several flight modes and made recommendations that will avoid the occurrence of flutter.
“The conducted work will allow designing an air propeller similar in external contours to the imported one, but having optimal mass and stiffness characteristics and having stability against flutter,” commented Vasily Vedeneev, the head of the work from the Moscow State University Research Institute of Mechanics.
He added that the development of modern flutter calculation methods is extremely important for the development of Russian civil aviation.
