Tail buffet alleviation of high performance twin tail aircraft using offset piezoceramic stack actuators and acceleration feedback control

In High Performance Twin-Tail Aircraft (HPTTA), tail buffet occurs during high angles of attack maneuvers. At high angles of attack, flow separates and vortices are convected by the geometry of the wing-fuselage interface toward the vertical tails. This phenomenon, along with the aeroelastic coupling of the tail structural assembly, results in vibrations that can shorten the fatigue life of the empennage assembly and limit the flight envelope due to the large amplitude of the fin vibrations.; The main goal of this research was to develop an active buffet alleviation system for HPTTA using Offset Piezoceramic Stack Actuators (OPSA) in combination with Acceleration Feedback Control (AFC) theory. In order to complete this task, the research work was divided into three main areas. First, two new methods for the design of non-collocated AFC controller parameters were developed for pure active damping applications and for quadratic performance criterion minimization. Second, a new type of moment inducing actuator based on piezoceramic stacks, the OPSA, was developed to provide high control authority while satisfying high reliability and maintainability requirements. A modal model of the OPSA acting on a benchmark structure was developed to create a low frequency approximation of the actuator and to optimize its offset distance and its placement. Third, because of the non-availability of reliable models for the controlled structure and the buffet-induced loads, a control system design method, based solely on the use of experimental data, was developed. Finally, two sets of experiments were conducted to show the feasibility of controlling buffet-induced vibrations during high angle of attack operations of a HPTTA. The first experiment validated both the effectiveness and the robustness of the active buffet alleviation system on an aeroelastically scaled model in wind tunnel tests. The second experiment showed that the combination of OPSA and AFC could suppress vibrations in a full-scale vertical tail sub-assembly.