An efficient evaluation method for wing fuel mass variations effect on transonic aeroelasticity

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to develop an efficient evaluation method to more intuitively and effectively investigate the influence of the wing fuel mass variations because of fuel burn on transonic aeroelasticity. Design/methodology/approach The proposed efficient aeroelastic evaluation method is developed by extending the standard computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based proper orthogonal decomposition (POD)/reduced order model (ROM). Findings The results of this paper show that the proposed aeroelastic efficient evaluation method can accurately and efficiently predict the aeroelastic response and flutter boundary when the wing fuel mass vary because of fuel burn. It also shows that the wing fuel mass variations have a significant effect on transonic aeroelasticity; the flutter speed increases as the wing fuel mass decreases. Without rebuilding an expensive, time-consuming CFD-based POD/ROM for each wing fuel mass variation, the computational cost of the proposed method is reduced obviously. It also shows that the computational efficiency improvement grows linearly with the number of model cases. Practical implications The paper presents a potentially powerful tool to more intuitively and effectively investigate the influence of the wing fuel mass variation on transonic aeroelasticity, and the results form a theoretical and methodological basis for further research. Originality/value The proposed evaluation method makes it a reality to apply the efficient standard CFD-based POD/ROM to investigate the influence of the wing fuel mass variation because of fuel burn on transonic aeroelasticity. The proposed efficient aeroelastic evaluation method, therefore, is ideally suited to deal with the investigation of the influence of wing fuel mass variations on transonic aeroelasticity and may have the potential to reduce the overall cost of aircraft design.