Quote:
Originally Posted by hank jarrett
Sid,
Did you move to Chicago when Boeing moved their headquarters? 
I have worked "with" a lot of vibration and flutter guys, and even had them work for me back in my pre NASA NAVAIR days. That was a VERY good explanation, and clear, understandable explanations of flutter dynamics are hard to come by.
You also made a pretty clear case why folks like us aren't going to be doing much flutter analysis and testing.
Hank
If you aren't a flutter engineer, are you married to one?  |
Sorry to disappoint you Hank, my wife was a librarian and school teacher
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I haven't ever worked at an aerospace company. I wanted to build a light jet at one time and studied how I might determine the flutter limits. There is probably a lot I left out in my explanation.
Actually folks like us can do an initial resonance surveys of an aircraft with some relatively simple test equipment and a little creativity. Just verifying that your control surfaces are unlikely to contribute to flutter is probably enough on all but the most flexible WWI airframes. Your eccentric weight could be driven by an electric drill driving a flexible shaft. You would watch for brief resonances as the drill accelerated/decelerated the eccentric weight assembly. As I mentioned earlier, small accelerometers are now affordable and could be used to determine the resonant structural frequencies. It is just a physics lab experiment on a little bit bigger scale.
Sid