[AEROM] Unsteady Aerodynamic Reduced-Order Models (ROMs) for Efficient Aeroelastic Analysis

About this technology

Overview

Unsteady aerodynamic reduced-order models (ROMs) have been developed that significantly improve the computational efficiency of traditional computational methods for aeroelastic analysis. Traditional methods rely on repetitive use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes for predicting the aeroelastic response of flight vehicles. However, the use of CFD codes is time-consuming and computationally expensive. The new ROMs enable the computational aeroelastic analysis of flight vehicles at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods. In particular, there are three new innovations: 1). ability to simultaneously excite all the structural modes of a flight vehicle using a single CFD execution; 2). ability to compute matched-point solutions (real world answers) without costly re-execution of the CFD code; and 3). ability to simultaneously compute the static and dynamic aeroelastic solutions using the same ROM. These recent developments result in a unique capability with important applications to real-world problems.from filed patent application--Computational aeroelastic analyses typically use a mathematical model for the structural modes of a flexible structure and a nonlinear aerodynamic model that can generate a plurality of unsteady aerodynamic responses based on the structural modes for conditions defining an aerodynamic condition of the flexible structure. In the present invention, a linear state-space model is generated using a single execution of the nonlinear aerodynamic model for all of the structural modes where a family of orthogonal functions is used as the inputs. Then, static and dynamic aeroelastic solutions are generated using computational interaction between the mathematical model and the linear state-space model for a plurality of periodic points in time.