2009/02/20 by Yuwen Li, Meyer Nahon, Inna Sharf · 1 citation
Engineering · #Acoustics #Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems #Aerospace engineering #Biomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms #Computational fluid dynamics #Computer science #Dynamics (music) #Engineering #Mechanics #Physics #Structural Analysis and Optimization
paper · doi:10.2514/1.37455
openalex publication_date 2009/02/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
The resurgence of airships has created a need for dynamics models and simulation capabilities of these lighter-than-air vehicles. The focus of this thesis is a theoretical framework that integrates the flight dynamics, structural dynamics, aerostatics and aerodynamics of flexible airships. The study begins with a dynamics model based on a rigid-body assumption. A comprehensive computation of aerodynamic effects is presented, where the aerodynamic forces and moments are categorized into various terms based on different physical effects. A series of prediction approaches for different aerodynamic effects are unified and applied to airships. The numerical results of aerodynamic derivatives and the simulated responses to control surface deflection inputs are verified by comparing to existing wind-tunnel and flight test data. With the validated aerodynamics and rigid-body modeling, the equations of motion of an elastic airship are derived by the Lagrangian formulation. The airship is modeled as a free-free Euler-Bernoulli beam and the bending deformations are represented by shape functions chosen as the free-free normal modes. In order to capture the coupling between the aerodynamic forces and the structural elasticity, local velocity on the deformed vehicle is used in the computation of aerodynamic forces. Finally, with the inertial, gravity, aerostatic and control forces incorporated, the dynamics model of a flexible airship is represented by a single set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The proposed model is implemented as a dynamics simulation program to analyze the dynamics characteristics of the Skyship-500 airship. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the influence of structural deformation on the aerodynamic forces and the dynamics behavior of the airship. The nonlinear equations of motion are linearized numerically for the purpose of frequency domain analysis and for aeroelastic stability analysis. The results from the latter for