| Piezoelectric materials offer an alternative method for active control of aeroelastic oscillations, that is potentially cheaper, lighter, and more effective than conventional control methods. In this thesis, the aeroelastic oscillations of a delta wing under the combined effects of unsteady, supersonic aerodynamic loading and bonded piezoelectric strips are studied.; The delta wing is modelled as a cantilevered triangular plate undergoing small transverse oscillations. Using the structural model developed here, the natural frequencies of the wing are obtained. A hybrid analytical-numerical method is developed for the unsteady supersonic aerodynamics of the wing, in order to determine the unsteady pressure distribution and the generalized aerodynamic forces on the wing. It is shown that the method adopted here to obtain the pressure distribution is more accurate than the analytical method based on frequency expansion, and computationally were efficient than the numerical methods using the Mach Box approach. Finally, in the presence of bonded piezoelectric strips, the transient and dynamic responses of the wing are studied without and with aerodynamic loading, respectively.; It is found that with particular combinations of voltages and the number of piezoelectric strips, the amplitude of the aeroelastic oscillations can be reduced. These required combinations change as the periodic frequency of wing oscillation is varied. Additionally, the piezoelectric actuators aligned with the span are more effective than the chord-aligned piezoelectric actuators, which produce little or no reduction in the oscillations. It is further found that even a small number of strips can effectively reduce the magnitude of the oscillations. |
