Aircraft flutter test design using identification and simulation: a SCILAB toolbox

We present here a complete procedure for the design and validation of a test for the flutter phenomenon. We start by presenting a covariance driven subspace identification method for output-only observations. This method applies to in-flight situation. Of course the flutter situation cannot be observed on aircrafts. For the design of a test we use the results of the identification; we build a simulator with the identified modal parameters. We suppose that the modal shapes remain constant and we simply simulate a variation of one of the frequencies or dampings. Then we define a possible test and show the results on the simulated data. All the experiments are made with the use of SCILAB and a specific toolbox MODAL