Coupled Fluid-Thermal-Structural Modeling And Analysis Of Hypersonic Skin Panel

Based on the overall review of aerothermoelastic analysis and its application in practical engineering, this paper presents a aerothermal-aeroelastic two-way coupling method for the aerothermoelastic response prediction of an carbon-carbon skin panel in hypersonic flow. The main work is divided into four parts:Firstly, approximate hypersonic aerodynamics model of a panel is formulated by combining the third-order piston theory and the Eckert’s reference enthalpy. This model includes the impact of structural deformation on aerodynamic heating which is an essential feature of the two-way coupling.Secondly, the thermal and structural models of the representative carbon-carbon skin panel are developed using the finite element method. After developing the finite element models, studies on the effect of grid and time step are performed for choosing appropriate finite element mesh and time step. Additionally, the impact of several aerothermal modeling consideration on transient thermal response is investigated.Thirdly, on the basis of the above, a two-way coupled aerothermoelastic model is developed. And the methods used to combine the separate fluid, thermal, and structural models of the carbon-carbon skin panel are described. Quasi-static and transient dynamic solution procedures are developed to couple the finite element models to the approximate hypersonic aerodynamic model. In addition, the characteristic thermal and structural response times are analyzed and the implication of the ratio of the characteristic response times on the solution procedure are discussed.Fourthly, based on the solution procedures above, the quasi-static and transient dynamic response predictions of the carbon-carbon skin panel are presented in time domain. It is found that the aerodynamic heating and the structural deformation is more intense, the coupling between aerodynamic heating and the structural deformation need to be considered. When considering the two-way coupling, the panel failure is more serious, moreover, it can be seen that the resistant to in-plane expansion can result in panel failure and trajectory dependent failure modes. The two-way coupling almost does not increase the computation cost, this is a result of using the approximate hypersonic aerodynamic model. The simplified temporal coupling procedure in which thermal loads are updated every tenth step of the structural solution can reduce the computational expense.