Chaotic motions and limit cycle flutter of two-dimensional wing in supersonic flow

Based on the piston theory of supersonic flow and the energy method, the flutter motion equations of a two-dimensional wing with cubic stiffness in the pitching direction are established. The aeroelastic system contains both structural and aerodynamic nonlinearities. Hopf bifurcation theory is used to analyze the flutter speed of the system. The effects of system parameters on the flutter speed are studied. The 4th order Runge-Kutta method is used to calculate the stable limit cycle responses and chaotic motions of the aeroelastic system. Results show that the number and the stability of equilibrium points of the system vary with the increase of flow speed. Besides the simple limit cycle response of period 1, there are also period-doubling responses and chaotic motions in the flutter system. The route leading to chaos in the aeroelastic model used here is the period-doubling bifurcation. The chaotic motions in the system occur only when the flow speed is higher than the linear divergent speed and the initial condition is very small. Moreover, the flow speed regions in which the system behaves chaos are very narrow.