This paper summarizes the activities performed for improving the understanding of the whirl flutter instability and its most sensitive parameters. Clearance from such aeroelastic instability is required by airworthiness rules for turboprop-powered aircraft and must be cleared for tilt-rotor vehicles. It may be also a required check to be carried out for windmilling propellers. In this article, the design, development, and testing of a small demonstrator are presented and results are discussed with reference to existing literature. The initial focus is on the governing equations and identification of parameters that affect the aeroelastic behavior of the propeller-engine installation. Ground vibration tests, at zero airspeed, have been performed to validate numerical models for the mass/inertia and stiffness distribution. Several measurements have been further carried out at different configurations, changing the airspeed, the stiffness, the mass, and the propeller in order to setup a sensitivity analysis and create a database for further improvements, mainly for a basic computation of unsteady airloads of the propeller. These analyses confirm expected results, allow interesting and confident conclusions and are able to help for showing compliance with current airworthiness rules for propeller-driven aircraft. The results presented in this paper will also represent the basis for asserting the range of validity of scaling effects for realistic applications.


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    Title :

    Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Whirl Flutter Characteristics in a Small-Scale Demonstrator


    Additional title:

    J. Aerosp. Eng.



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2022-05-01




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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