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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2016

Calculated Low-Speed Steady and Time-Dependent Aerodynamic Derivatives for Several Different Wings Using a Discrete Vortex Method

Calculated numerical values for some aerodynamic terms and stability Derivatives for several different wings in unseparated inviscid incompressible flow were made using a discrete vortex method involving a limited number of horseshoe vortices. Both longitudinal and lateral-directional derivatives were calculated for steady conditions as well as for sinusoidal oscillatory motions. Variables included the number of vortices used and the rotation axis/moment center chordwise location. Frequencies considered were limited to the range of interest to vehicle dynamic stability (kb <.24 ). Comparisons of some calculated numerical results with experimental wind-tunnel measurements were in reasonable agreement in the low angle-of-attack range considering the differences existing between the mathematical representation and experimental wind-tunnel models tested. Of particular interest was the presence of induced drag for the oscillatory condition.

Riley, Donald R.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Helicopter stability and control modeling improvements and verification on two helicopters

A linearized model of helicopter flight dynamics is developed which includes the flapping, lead-lag, and dynamic inflow degrees of freedom (DOF). The model is a combination of analytical terms and numerically determined stability derivatives, and is used to investigate the importance of the rotor DOF to stability and control modeling. The results show that the rotor DOF can have a significant impact on some of the natural modes in a linear model. The flap and dynamic inflow DOF show the greatest influence. Flapping exhibits strong coupling to the body, dynamic inflow, and to lead-lag to a lesser extent. Dynamic inflow tends to damp the high-frequency flapping modes, and reduces the damping on coupled body-flap motion. Dynamic inflow also couples to the flapping motion to produce complex roots. With body-flap and lag regressing modes as exceptions, the results show essentially similar behavior for most modes of articulated and hingeless rotor helicopters.

Schrage, D. P.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Determination of Stability and Control Derivatives using Computational Fluid Dynamics and Automatic Differentiation

With the recent interest in novel control effectors there is a need to determine the stability and control derivatives of new aircraft configurations early in the design process. These derivatives are central to most control law design methods and would allow the determination of closed-loop control performance of the vehicle. Early determination of the static and dynamic behavior of an aircraft may permit significant improvement in configuration weight, cost, stealth, and performance through multidisciplinary design. The classical method of determining static stability and control derivatives - constructing and testing wind tunnel models - is expensive and requires a long lead time for the resultant data. Wind tunnel tests are also limited to the preselected control effectors of the model. To overcome these shortcomings, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers are augmented via automatic differentiation, to directly calculate the stability and control derivatives. The CFD forces and moments are differentiated with respect to angle of attack, angle of sideslip, and aircraft shape parameters to form these derivatives. A subset of static stability and control derivatives of a tailless aircraft concept have been computed by two differentiated inviscid CFD codes and verified for accuracy with central finite-difference approximations and favorable comparisons to a simulation database.

Park, Michael A.↗
NASA NTRS1954

Method for Studying Helicopter Longitudinal Maneuver Stability

A theoretical analysis of helicopter maneuver stability is made and the results are compared with experimental results for both a single and a tandem rotor helicopter. Techniques are described for measuring in flight the significant stability derivatives for use with the theory to aid in design studies of means for achieving marginal maneuver stability for a prototype helicopter.

Amer, Kenneth B↗
NASA NTRS1977

Calculated Hovering Helicopter Flight Dynamics with a Circulation Controlled Rotor

The influence of the rotor blowing coefficient on the calculated roots of the longitudinal and lateral motion was examined for a range of values of the rotor lift and the blade flap frequency. The control characteristics of a helicopter with a circulation controlled rotor are discussed. The principal effect of the blowing is a reduction in the rotor speed stability derivative. Above a critical level of blowing coefficient, which depends on the flap frequency and rotor lift, negative speed stability is produced and the dynamic characteristics of the helicopter are radically altered.

Johnson, W.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Calculated hovering helicopter flight dynamics with a circulation-controlled rotor

The flight dynamics of a hovering helicopter with a circulation-controlled rotor are analyzed. The influence of the rotor blowing coefficient on the calculated eigenvalues of the helicopter motion is examined for a range of values of the rotor lift and the blade flap frequency. The control characteristics of a helicopter with a circulation-controlled rotor are discussed. The principal effect of the blowing is a reduction in the rotor speed stability derivative. Above a critical level of blowing coefficient, which depends on the flap frequency and rotor lift, negative speed stability is produced and the dynamic characteristics of the helicopter are radically altered. The handling qualities of a helicopter with negative speed stability are probably unacceptable without a stability augmentation system.

Johnson, W.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Lateral stability and control derivatives extracted from space shuttle Challenger flight data

Flight data taken from six flights of the Space Transportation System shuttle Challenger (STS-6, 7, 8, 11, 13 and 17) during atmospheric entry are analyzed to determine the shuttle lateral aerodynamic characteristics. Maximum likelihood estimation is applied to data derived from accelerometer and rate gyro measurements and trajectory, meteorological and control surface data to estimate lateral-directional stability and control derivatives. The vehicle stability and control surface effectiveness are compared across the flights and to preflight predicted values.

Schiess, James R.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Calculated Low-Speed Steady and Time-Dependent Aerodynamic Derivatives for Some Airfoils Using a Discrete Vortex Method

This paper contains a collection of some results of four individual studies presenting calculated numerical values for airfoil aerodynamic stability derivatives in unseparated inviscid incompressible flow due separately to angle-of-attack, pitch rate, flap deflection, and airfoil camber using a discrete vortex method. Both steady conditions and oscillatory motion were considered. Variables include the number of vortices representing the airfoil, the pitch axis / moment center chordwise location, flap chord to airfoil chord ratio, and circular or parabolic arc camber. Comparisons with some experimental and other theoretical information are included. The calculated aerodynamic numerical results obtained using a limited number of vortices provided in each study compared favorably with thin airfoil theory predictions. Of particular interest are those aerodynamic results calculated herein (such as induced drag) that are not readily available elsewhere.

Riley, Donald R.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Synthesis techniques for insensitive aircraft control systems

Comparative evaluation of seven insensitive synthesis techniques applied to the control of the longitudinal axis and symmetric flexure modes of the C-5A aircraft is described. These techniques have the common goal of achieving insensitivity to parameter uncertainties and unmodeled dynamics. For this comparison, the 'complete' model was assumed to consist of rigid body dynamics, fifteen flexure modes, unsteady aerodynamics, gust dynamics, and first order actuators for two control inputs. Thirteen flexure modes and the unsteady aerodynamics were treated as neglected dynamics. Dynamic pressure, structural frequency and damping, and the stability derivative were treated as uncertain parameters. Design specifications consisted of a transient response criterion, statistical response criteria, eigenvalue criteria and stability margins. A nominal controller designed without regard to sensitivity served as a benchmark for performance comparisons of the insensitive controllers.

Harvey, C. A.↗
NASA NTRS1960

Analytical Investigation of the Dynamic Behavior of a Nonlifting Manned Reentry Vehicle

An analytic investigation was made of the dynamic behavior of a nonlifting manned reentry vehicle as it descended through the atmosphere. The investigation included the effects of variations in the aerodynamic stability derivatives, the spin rate, reentry angle, and velocity. The effect of geostrophic winds and of employing a drogue parachute for stability purposes were also investigated. It was found that for the portion of the flight above a Mach number of 1 a moderate amount of negative damping could be tolerated but below a Mach number of 1 good damping is necessary. The low-speed stability could be improved by employing a drogue parachute. The effectiveness of the drogue parachute was increased when attached around the periphery of the rear of the vehicle rather than at the center. Neither moderate amounts of spin or the geostrophic winds had appreciable effects on the stability of the vehicle. The geostrophic winds and the reentry angle or velocity all showed important effects on the range covered by the reentry flight path.

Lichtenstein, Jacob H.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Analytical techniques for the analysis of stall/spin flight test data

Analytical techniques for the analysis of stall/spin flight test data are reviewed by discussing (1) certain special flight instrumentation issues, (2) the mathematical modeling techniques, and (3) the analysis of post stall and spinning flight of general aviation airplanes. The angles of attack, sideslip, roll, pitch, and yaw are derived from measurements of angular velocity and linear acceleration. The key to the success of this approach is to simultaneously estimate both the biases in the instrumentation and the initial conditions. Techniques for determining stability derivatives from flight data are applied to angles of attack too high for stabilized flight. This practice greatly expands the range over which aerodynamic characteristics can be determined from flight test. Nonlinear terms in certain aerodynamic functions are shown to be valid by comparing them with the trends of results at different angles of attack. A very old technique of studying spins is extended and applied to some modern light airplanes. Airplanes for which the wing provides the dominant moments during spins, offer the possibility of linking spin characteristics to longitudinal data.

Taylor, L. W., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Unsteady linearized transonic flow analysis for slender bodies

An unsteady linearized formulation based on Oswatitsch-Keune's parabolic method is developed to analyze transonic flow past oscillating slender bodies. In contrast to the widely used integral transform method, it is shown that all solutions can be derived by a simpler method directly in the physical plane. By various expansion procedures, low-frequency solutions then are derived according to two clearly defined frequency ranges. Adams-Sears' iteration is employed to account for the second-order effects. Stability derivatives are compared with available theories and data. It is found that the derivatives depend more sensitively on thickness than on the reduced frequency. Finally, a critical assessment of the present method is given.

Liu, D. D.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Control of linear uncertain systems utilizing mismatched state observers

The control of linear continuous dynamical systems is investigated as a problem of limited state feedback control. The equations which describe the structure of an observer are developed constrained to time-invarient systems. The optimal control problem is formulated, accounting for the uncertainty in the design parameters. Expressions for bounds on closed loop stability are also developed. The results indicate that very little uncertainty may be tolerated before divergence occurs in the recursive computation algorithms, and the derived stability bound yields extremely conservative estimates of regions of allowable parameter variations.

Goldstein, B.↗
NASA NTRS1976

On the formulation of the aerodynamic characteristics in aircraft dynamics

The theory of functionals is used to reformulate the notions of aerodynamic indicial functions and superposition. Integral forms for the aerodynamic response to arbitrary motions are derived that are free of dependence on a linearity assumption. Simplifications of the integral forms lead to practicable nonlinear generalizations of the linear superpositions and stability derivative formulations. Applied to arbitrary nonplanar motions, the generalization yields a form for the aerodynamic response that can be compounded of the contributions from a limited number of well-defined characteristic motions, in principle reproducible in the wind tunnel. Further generalizations that would enable the consideration of random fluctuations and multivalued aerodynamic responses are indicated.

Tobak, M.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Aircraft ride quality controller design using new robust root clustering theory for linear uncertain systems

The aspect of controller design for improving the ride quality of aircraft in terms of damping ratio and natural frequency specifications on the short period dynamics is addressed. The controller is designed to be robust with respect to uncertainties in the real parameters of the control design model such as uncertainties in the dimensional stability derivatives, imperfections in actuator/sensor locations and possibly variations in flight conditions, etc. The design is based on a new robust root clustering theory developed by the author by extending the nominal root clustering theory of Gutman and Jury to perturbed matrices. The proposed methodology allows to get an explicit relationship between the parameters of the root clustering region and the uncertainty radius of the parameter space. The current literature available for robust stability becomes a special case of this unified theory. The bounds derived on the parameter perturbation for robust root clustering are then used in selecting the robust controller.

Yedavalli, R. K.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Estimation of airplane stability and control derivatives at high angles of attack

A technique for extracting approximate aircraft stability and control derivatives over a broad range of angle of attack from a single large amplitude maneuver which encompasses that range is presented. The results from the application of this technique to flight data are shown to agree well with derivatives extracted from several maneuvers which are more restricted in range of angle of attack. The technique consists of dividing the data from the large maneuver into bins that are a function of angle of attack. The binned data is then analyzed with a modified stepwise regression. The identification of nonlinear terms in the aerodynamic model is shown to discern regions of rapid change in aircraft behavior.

Batterson, J. G.↗