This paper presents some effects of nonlinear structural terms on the flutter of a wing capable of bending and twisting and, also, of a system including a control surface. Several type , of nonlinearities in the stiffness are investigated, including free play, a hysteresis loop, and cubic variations. These are introduced in the torsional degree of freedom of the wing and in the aileron stiffness in the three degree of freedom system. Calculations have been made on an analog computer. A wind-tunnel investigation of one case having free play in the torsional degree of freedom has been made, and good correlation between theory and experiment is shown. The results indicate that the stability of a nonlinear system is highly dependent on the magnitude of initial displacements of the system from equilibrium. I t is shown that in many cases the flutter speed is decreased by increasing the initial disturbance. The results also indicate that when a nonlinear system becomes unstable its flutter may become self-limited.
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Woolston et al. (1957) studied this question.