Aerospace Engineering
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Item The Influence of Variable Flow Velocity on Unsteady Airfoil Behavior(1991) van der Wall, Berend G.; Leishman, J. Gordon; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)The importance of unsteady aerodynamics for prediction of rotor dynamics is unquestioned today. The purpose of unsteady aerodynamic models is to represent the effect of unsteady airfoil motion on the lift, moment and drag characteristics of a blade section. This includes unsteady motion (arbitrary motion) of the airfoil in angle of attack (pitch) and vertical movement (plunge), as well as the effects of an airfoil traveling through a vertical gust field. However, the additional degrees of freedom, namely the fore-aft motion and the unsteady freestream variations commonly are acknowledged, but neglected in virtually all analyses. Since the effect of unsteady freestream results in a stretching and compressing of the shed wake vorticity distribution behind an airfoil, it will have an effect on the airfoil characteristics. The subject of this thesis is to provide a review of the analytic and experimental work done in the area of unsteady freestream and unsteady fore-aft motion, to clarify the limits of the various theories, and to show the differences between them. This will be limited to the attached flow regime since all theories are based on the small disturbance assumption in incompressible flow. As far as possible the theories are compared with experimental data, however most of the available experimental data are confined to stalled flow conditions and are not useful here. In addition to the theories, a semiempirical mathematical model will be used based on the aerodynamics of indicial functions. The purpose is to show the differences of using the theories of unsteady airfoil motion in a constant flow, and those accounting for unsteady freestream flow. This will help to justify whether it is necessary to include the unsteady freestream effect in comprehensive rotor codes. Finally, a generalisation of Isaacs unsteady aerodynamic theory for an airfoil undergoing a frequency spectra in pitch and plunge in a freestream oscillating with the fundamental frequency is presented here for the first time. Therein the axis of rotation of the airfoil is a free parameter.Item MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF ADAPTIVE MOTOR CONTROL(1999) Kosha, Makiko; Sanner, Robert M.; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)An adaptive control law incorporating a biologically inspired neural networks for robot control is used as a mathematical model of human motor control and the motor control adaptation. Modeling human motor control strategy is made difficult due to the redundancies in the human motor control system. This control model is able to overcome the difficulties of the human motor control modelling, and include the learning capability of the motor control strategy which was omitted in human motor control studies until now. By adaptively piecing together a collection of elementary computational elements, the proposed model develops complex internal models which are used to compensate for the effects of externally imposed forces or changes in the physical properties of the system. In order to examine the form of human motor control adaptation in detail, a computer simulation was developed with a two dimensional model of the human arm which utilized the proposed adaptive motor control model. The simulation result show that the model is able to capture the characteristics of the motor control adaptation seen in human experiments reported by [14], [46]. For cont inuation of this research, an experimental apparatus was designed and built for the human motor control study. This apparatus is a cable driven, two-dimensional manipulator which is used to apply specified disturbance forces to the human arm. The preliminary experiment conducted with this test apparatus show a strong correlation to the simulation data and other experimental data reported on human reaching motions.Item High-Frequency Nonlinear Vibrational Control(IEEE, 1997-01) Shapiro, Benjamin; Zinn, B. T.This paper discusses the feasibility of high-frequency nonlinear vibrational control. Such control has the advantage that it does not require state measurement and processing capabilities that are required in conventional feedback control. Bellman et al. [1] investigated nonlinear systems controlled by linear vibrational controllers and proved that vibrational control is not feasible if the Jacobian matrix has a positive trace. This paper extends previous work to include nonlinear vibrational controllers. A stability criteria is derived for nonlinear systems with nonlinear controllers, and it is shown that a nonlinear vibrational controller can stabilize a system even if the Jacobian matrix has a positive trace.Item Symmetry Approach to Extension of Flutter Boundaries via Mistuning(American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1998-05) Shapiro, BenjaminA general framework is presented for analyzing and optimizing stability increases resulting from mistuning. The framework given is model independent and is based primarily on symmetry arguments. Difficult practical issues are transformed to tractable mathematical questions. It is shown that mistuning analysis reduces to a block circular matrix eigenvalue/vector problem that can be solved efficiently even for large problems. Similarly, the optimization becomes a standard linear constraint quadratic programming problem and can be solved numerically. Because the methods given are model-independent, they can be applied to various models and allow the researcher to easily conclude which models accurately capture mistuning and which do not. A simple quasisteady model for flutter in a cascade is used to illustrate and validate results in this paper.Item Solving for Mistuned Forced Response by Symmetry(American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1999-03) Shapiro, BenjaminThe introduction of mistuning in jet-engine bladed disks can lead to large changes in stability and forced response. Even small random mistuning (within the bounds of manufacturing tolerance) can lead to unacceptable response and high-cycle fatigue. Meanwhile, intentional mistuning may improve stability and forced response under manufacturing uncertainty. This paper presents a general framework for predicting forced response as a function of mistuning. Because the forced response problem is an almost singular linear problem, its solution is highly nonlinear in the mistuning parameters. Our methods exploit symmetry arguments and eigenstructure perturbation to provide a method valid for any model. It is shown that, by perturbing eigenvectors in the numerator and the inverse of eigenvalues in the denominator (exploiting symmetry in both computations), we can accurately approximate the forced response as a function of mistuning. Results are demonstrated for a simple lightly damped model, and the consequent sharp nonlinear behavior is captured almost perfectly. We also show that intentional mistuning may guarantee improved stability and forced response under fixed manufacturing tolerances. Thus, intentional mistuning should be considered as a practical means of increasing safety and enhancing engine performance.Item Automatic Rendering of Astrodynamics Expressions for Efficient Evaluation(American Astronautical Society, 1998) Healy, Liam M.; Travisano, Jeffrey J.In this paper, we describe the automatic rendering of expressions computed using symbolic manipulation. Computations from astrodynamics frequently can be put in a fixed hierarchy of polynomials and Fourier series. Once in this form, FORTRAN subprograms can be generated automatically in a form that lends itself to numerical evaluation. The goal of the current work is to present an approach for using symbolic manipulation techniques to produce a Fortran representation of the normalized Hamiltonian and other supporting equations representing as many of the actual physical effects on satellites as possible.Item Symbolic and Parallel Computation in Celestial Mechanics(Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1996) Healy, LiamOne aspect of celestial mechanics is the computation of the long-term orbits of celestial bodies. This type of computation is complicated by the interaction of the many bodies that need to be considered to derive accurate long-term behavior. For reasons explained in this chapter, it is necessary to do this symbolically rather than numerically. Symbolic computations performed on a Lisp machine are described. The visualization of the solution is accomplished in a massively parallel SIMD machine.Item Close Conjunction Detection on Parallel Computer(American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1995-07) Healy, LiamClose conjunction detection is the task of finding which satellites will come within a given distance of other satellites. The algorithms described here are implemented on the Connection Machine (CM) in a program called CM-COMBO. It will find close conjunctions of satellites over a time range for one, a few, or all satellites against the original or another catalog and works with an arbitrary propagator. The problem of comparing an entire catalog against itself is beyond the computing power of current serial machines. This program does not prefilter any orbits and does not make assumptions about the type of orbit (that it be nearly circular, for instance). This paper describes the algorithm for this computation, the implementation on the CM, and resuls of several studies using this program.Item Deterministic Studies of Debris Hazards with Parallel Processors(European Space Agency, 1993-04-05) Healy, Liam; Coffey, ShannonA new generation of parallel processing computers makes possible the ability to propagate all objects in the space surveillance catalog with simulated objects, and detect close approaches. With this capability, it is possible to test deterministically debris scenarios, without resorting to statistical models. To compare the positions of objects we have developed two methods, an all-to-all comparison and a one-to-all comparison. For the former, a seive significantly reduces computation time; for the latter, direct comparison is possible in parallel. We show results from several simulations, including simulated multiple sources of debris, hazard to the space station, and close contacts amongst the catalog itself, to show potential for debris studies. The techniques described here have potential application the general problem of catalog maintenance.Item Parallel Computing for Space Surveillance(MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 1992) Healy, Liam; Coffey, ShannonThis paper reports on an application of massively parallel processors to multiple satellite propagation and the calculation of miss distances between objects (COMBO). Unlike serial computations, we do not pre-filter the data but rather sort the data set in a way that dramatically cuts the number of comparisons required in order to be assured of a complete catalog-to-catalog comparison. The same general algorithm allows two logical sets to be compare to each other. Run time for this demonstration code on an 8K Connection Machine is about one second per time step, including propagation, complete catalog-to-catalog calculation of miss distances, plotting satellite positions, and recording of the miss distances to a file. Propagation of the objects is performed with an analytic propagator, using J2 only at present, though the code may easily be extended to other propagators. We demonstrate a second application of parallel computing to the problem of debris propagation resulting from a satellite breakup. The spread of such debris into n pieces is simulated by replicating the element set for the original satellite n times, then altering each to represent a distribution of velocities to the center of mass.