Abstract
Three-dimensional aeroelastic phenomena are numerically simulated for the development of a balloon-based operation vehicle (BOV) proposed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The structures of the all-moving tail wing composed of several materials are modeled in detail using a finite element method. The vibration modes obtained from the eigenvalue analysis of the three-dimensional solid model are mapped to two-dimensional iso-parametric shell elements for efficient fluid-structure coupled analysis using unstructured computational fluid dynamics. The methods are validated by the fluttering of the National Aerospace Laboratory wing, which has a similar planform to the BOV tail and is referred to as a standard problem. The shape of the flutter boundary is explained by the characteristic shift of the aerodynamic center. The simulation results show the BOV tail has a sufficient safety margin for flutter along the freefall flight path.
