On the increase of the flutter boundary and energy harvesting of subsonic aeroelastic systems using the concept of piezoaeroviscoelasticity.

Abstract This paper shows the possibility of increasing the energy harvesting and subsonic flutter boundary of aeroelastic systems using viscoelastic materials and shunted piezoceramics, simultaneously. For this purposes, it is used here a two degrees of freedom typical section subjected to an unsteady airflow containing discrete viscoelastic mounts and attached to a resistive piezo-shunted circuit. In the modeling of the piezoaeroviscoelastic problem, the complex modulus approach combined with the concept of shift factor and reduced frequency has been used to represent the frequency- and temperature-dependent behavior of the viscoelastic substructure. To model the unsteady aerodynamic loadings acting on the system, it was assumed the well-known linearized thin airfoil theory. Numerical simulations were performed for some design parameters and subsonic flight conditions to demonstrate the main features of the proposed method and the possibility of increasing the dynamic stability and power generation of the piezoaeroviscoelastic system. In addition, a parametric study has been performed to evaluate the degree of influence of operating temperature and load resistance on the stability and energy harvesting.