The Flutter of a Uniform Wing With Tip Weights

Abstract

Abstract Forming an extension of a previously published work (1), the present paper investigates the flutter of a uniform wing in free flight carrying a fuselage at its semispan and a weight at each wing tip. Wing-tip weights arise in practice when, for example, wing-tip fuel tanks are installed. The flutter system is studied by solving the differential equations for the wing motion. Solutions are carried out for two representative airplane configurations and the resultant speeds, frequencies, and mode shapes at flutter are compared with those obtained on the basis of conventional, Rayleigh-type flutter analyses. The methods of the original paper (1) are considerably refined, resulting in a significant reduction in the amount of labor required to effect a solution.