Aero-thermo-elastic flutter analysis of supersonic moderately thick orthotropic plates with general boundary conditions

In this paper, a unified solution is proposed to evaluate the aero-thermo-elastic flutter of supersonic plates with general boundary conditions, in which the classical and non-classical boundary conditions can be dealt with. The Mindlin plate theory and supersonic piston theory are employed to formulate the strain energy, kinetic energy and external work functions of the system. The yawed flow angle effect and temperature dependent properties of materials are also considered in the proposed formulation. The motion equations of the supersonic plate are derived by using the Hamilton's principle and the displacement components of the supersonic plate are expanded by the Fourier series combined with auxiliary functions, which can readily satisfy the classical and elastic boundary conditions. A considerable number of numerical examples concerning the vibration and flutter of the supersonic plate are carried out to show the performance of the described method and the comparisons of the obtained results with those from the existing work and finite element method (FEM) are performed. It is found the proposed method is accurate and versatile to predict the flutter behaviors of the supersonic plate. Finally, the effects of the aerodynamic pressure, yawed flow angle, thermal loads, boundary conditions and temperature dependence of material properties on the flutter characteristics of the supersonic plate are analyzed in detail.