A Superposition Approach For Determining Lift Distributions On Maneuvering Airplanes With Applications To Post Stall (M.W. Sutton)

ABSTRACT
SUTTON, MATTHEW WESLEY. A Superposition Approach for Determining Lift Distributions

on Maneuvering Airplanes with Applications to Post Stall. (Under the direction of Dr. Ashok
Gopalarathnam.)
Simulation of ight dynamics in post-stall conditions requires the ability to handle many
non-linearities. These cannot be modeled with traditional approaches. For attached-ow ight
conditions, most methods for simulation of ight dynamics use low delity approximations
such as linearizations, decoupling of longitudinal with lateral/directional motions, and the use
of stability derivatives. Other methods include high delity representations through the use
of lookup tables obtained from wind tunnel and ight testing. The drawback to using these
higher delity methods is that they require expensive apparatus which might not be accessible.
Without look-up tables or the use of stability derivatives, the lift distributions need to be found
at each step of the simulation. The use of in-the-loop aerodynamic load prediction such as vortex
lattice methods (VLM), are computationally expensive and are too slow for real time simulation.
Plus, these methods are not suitable for post-stall ight. Thus a dierent approach is required
that is appropriate for post-stall and is fast enough for real-time simulation. Previous research
eorts have included these non-linear eects but require the total lift distribution at each step
of the ODE. To address this need, a method using superposition of basic and additional lift
distributions has been developed. An important contribution to this eort was appropriately
modeling the eects of sideslip and angular velocity using superposition of lift distributions.
Using a linear lift curve, instantaneous values of the aircraft velocities and angular rates are
used as inputs and scaled using superposition to nd the overall lift distribution. For near
or post-stall ight, these lift distributions are corrected using the post-stall prediction method
and the output lift distribution is integrated to nd the forces and moments on the aircraft.
This method is suitable for full six degree-of-freedom (DOF) ight, but, in its current stage,
does not include eects from sweep, control surface deections, the body, or propulsive devices.
Therefore, while further eorts are needed, the method shows promise and is rapid enough for
real-time ight simulation.
c Copyright 2010 by Matthew Wesley Sutton
All Rights Reserved
A Superposition Approach for Determining Lift Distributions
on Maneuvering Airplanes with Applications to Post Stall
by
Matthew Wesley Sutton
A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
North Carolina State University
in partial fulllment of the
requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science
Aerospace Engineering
Raleigh, North Carolina
2010
APPROVED BY:
Dr. Larry M. Silverberg Dr. Charles E Hall Jr.
Dr. Ashok Gopalarathnam
Chair of Advisory Committee
DEDICATION
To my mother and father, sister, family, and friends, who provided me with endless support
over the years.
ii
BIOGRAPHY
Matthew W. Sutton was born to Mark and Lynn Sutton February 2nd, 1985 in Clinton, North
Carolina. The younger brother of Gina Sutton, Matthew lived in Clinton until the fall following
his graduation from Clinton High School in 2003. That August, he moved to Raleigh where
he sought his Bachelors of Science at North Carolina State University (NCSU) majoring in
Engineering Undecided. As a small child, Matthew had been fascinated with ight and aircraft
design, and while matriculating he rekindled his fascination and began his studies in Aerospace
Engineering (AE). In the summer of 2004, he briey moved to Wilmington, NC to fulll his
physics requirements at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. In the spring of 2006
he participated in the Study Abroad program at NCSU, relocating to Cork, Ireland for the
semester and studying at University College Cork. Upon his return to NC, he began a two-part
internship at B/E Aerospace in Winston-Salem, NC. As a senior, Matthew participated in a two-
semester aero-senior design project where he functioned as a stability and control, empennage
design, procurement, and fuselage construction specialist. His team presented in the AIAA
Southeastern Conference design-build-y competition and earned third place honors. In the
summer of 2008, Matthew graduated with a BS in AE boasting Cum Laude honors. Following
graduation, Matthew began his graduate studies pursuing his MS in AE. In the fall of 2008,
Matthew joined the Applied Aerodynamics group under Dr. Ashok Gopalarathnam. As an
undergraduate, Dr. Gopalarathnam had been Matthews most respected professor and one he
relied on for guidance and direction.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Ashok Gopalarathnam, for his patience and guidance.
His insight and support have been a foundation of my success at both the undergraduate and
graduate levels.
I would also like to thank my committee members for their continued support. Dr. Larry
Silverbergs door has always been open, and he has received my interest and questions with
thorough and thoughtful feedback. It has also been a pleasure working with Dr. Charles Hall.
The conditioning and experience I received in Senior Design helped strengthen my commitment
to problem solving and condence as an engineer.
I am also grateful for the support given by other faculty including Dr. Paul Ro, Cheryl
Tran and Dr. Cho Tran, as well as the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
at North Carolina State University.
I would like to thank the other students in the Applied Aerodynamics Group (specically
Kiran Ramesh, Joe Johnston, and Sriram Pakkam), along with Matt Hazard formerly with the
Flight Research Group, Scott Hays and Hunter Hughes from the Robust Controls groups, as
well as Alex Hartl.
I would also like to give a special thanks to my wonderful girlfriend Kat, who was always
quick to come by to fuel my late nights in times of need with food and caeine (love you!).
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 Previous Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 Use of Superposition to Obtain Lift Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1.1 Review of Lift Superposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Post-stall aerodynamic prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.1 Illustration of the Decambering Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.2 Decambering Applied to a 3D Wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.3 Multiple intersections with inclined trajectory line . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 Improvements to the Decambering Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3.1 Lift Superposition for Improved Computational Eciency . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter 3 Simulation of Forces and Moments Using Superposition . . . . . . . 15
3.1 AVL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2 Denition of Model used for Verication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3 Conventions and Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.4 Integration of Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.5 Longitudinal Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.5.1 Modeling the Eect of Section Incidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.5.2 Modeling Pitch Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.5.3 Pitch Rate Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.6 Lateral/Directional Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.6.1 Modeling Sideslip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.6.2 Sideslip Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.6.3 Modeling Roll Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.6.4 Roll Rate Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.6.5 Modeling Yaw Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.6.6 Yaw Rate Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.6.7 Mixed Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.7 Stability Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter 4 Results for Dynamics in Pre-Stall and Post-Stall . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.1 Fixed Wing Equations of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2 Linear Modeling of Aircraft Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2.1 Phugoid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2.2 Dutch Roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
v
4.2.3 Spiral Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.3 Post-Stall Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.3.1 Post-Stall Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Chapter 5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Appendix A More Examples with Yaw Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
A.1 Varying Yaw Rate at
trim
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
A.2 Varying with Constant Yaw Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Limits on angular rate inputs in AVL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Table 3.2 Aircraft Conguration Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Table 3.3 Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and q . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Table 3.4 Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Table 3.5 Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and p
. . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Table 3.6 Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and r
. . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Table 3.7 Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: , , and p
. . . . . . . . . . 42
Table 3.8 Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: , p
, and r
. . . . . . . . . . 44
Table 3.9 Stability Derivative Comparison: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Table 3.10 Stability Derivative Comparison: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Table 3.11 Stability Derivative Comparison: p
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Table 3.12 Stability Derivative Comparison: q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Table 3.13 Stability Derivative Comparison: r
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Table 4.1 Initial Conditions for Phugoid Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Table 4.2 Initial conditions for dutch roll motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Table 4.3 Initial conditions for spiral mode motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Table A.1 C
x
Comparison for Varying r at Trim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Table A.2 C
y
Table A.3 C
z
Table A.4 C
L
Table A.5 C
l
Table A.6 C
m
Table A.7 C
n
Table A.8 C
x
Comparison for Varying at r=50
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Table A.9 C
y
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Table A.10 C
z
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Table A.11 C
l
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Table A.12 C
m
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Table A.13 C
n
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
vii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Schematic diagram of decambering functions 1 and 2 (
1
and
2
are neg-
ative as shown and exaggerated for clarity). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Figure 2.2 (a) Illustration of the dierences in computation of the residuals. (b)
Illustration of the dierent ways in which trajectory lines can intersect
the airfoil C
l
- curve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Figure 3.1 Geometry plot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Figure 3.2 Breakdown of Surface Loading: = 3
, q = 0.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Figure 3.3 Breakdown of Surface Loading: C
L
= 0.5, = 5
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
L
= 0.5, p
= 0.05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
L
= 0.5, r
= 0.10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
L
= 0.5, = 5
, p
= 0.05 . . . . . . . 41
L
= 0.5, p
= 0.05, r
= 0.05 . . . . . . 43
Figure 3.8 Lift and Pitching Moment with change in Angle of Attack . . . . . . . . . 46
Figure 3.9 Side force, Rolling Moment, and Yawing Moment Curves with change in
Sideslip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Roll Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Figure 3.11 Lift and Pitching Moment Curves with change in Pitch Rate . . . . . . . 52
Roll Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Figure 4.1 Flow chart for pre-stall aerodynamic prediction at each time step . . . . . 58
Figure 4.2 Comparison between the superposition approach and AVL for the phugoid
mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Figure 4.3 Comparison between the superposition approach and AVL for the Dutch
Roll mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Figure 4.4 Comparison between the superposition approach and AVL for the Spiral
mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Figure 4.5 Flow chart for post-stall aerodynamic prediction at each time step . . . . 64
Figure 4.6 Lift curves for the post-stall examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Figure 4.7 View of the ight paths from the side (x vs. z). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Figure 4.8 View of the ight paths from the above (x vs. y). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Figure 4.9 Spanwise C
l
distributions after 1 second for the three examples. . . . . . . 67
Figure A.1 Breakdown of Surface Loading:
trim
=3.5
/s, r=50
/s . . . . . . . . . . 73
trim
=3.5
/s, r=100
/s . . . . . . . . . . 74
trim
=3.5
/s, r=145
/s . . . . . . . . . . 75
Figure A.4 Breakdown of Surface Loading: =5
/s, r=50
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
/s, r=50
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
/s, r=50
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
/s, r=50
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
viii
/s, r=50
/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
ix
NOMENCLATURE
Angle of attack
a
Additional circulation due to changes in
b
Basic circulation due to variations in twist
Circulation
a,1
Additional circulation due to C
L
= 1
Induced velocity along the freestream direction
C
L
Total conguration lift coecient
V
Free steam velocity

Air density
u, v, w Body axis velocities
p, q, r Body axis angular rates about x, y, z
c Chord distribution
C
lb,twist
Basic loading due to spanwise variations in twist
EOM Equations of motion
V LM Vortex lattice method
LLT Lifting line theory
Decambering variable (1-reduction in , 2-decambering of trailing edge)
C
l
Section lift coecient
C
m
Section pitching moment coecient
2
Angular location along the chord of an airfoil
x
2
Position along the chord of an airfoil
F 2N Dimensional vector of residuals
J 2Nx2N Jacobian
x 2N Vector containing correction factors to bring F closer to zero
(C
ls
)
j
Starting values of section C
l
for calculating residuals
(C
ms
)
j
Starting values of section C
m
(C
lp
)
j
Purturbed values of section C
l
(C
mp
)
j
Purturbed values of section C
m
(C
lt
)
j
Target values of section C
l
(C
mt
)
j
Target values of section C
m
C
lb,0
Zero-decambering basic C
l
distribution due to twist
C
lb,i
Incremental C
lb
due to a unit
1
a Wing lift curve slope
b,0
Wing angle of attack corresponding to C
lb,0
x
b,i
Wing angle of attack corresponding to C
lb,i
(J
l1
)
ij
Element of jacobian
(
dC
l
d
)
traj,i
Slope of trajectory line
C
X
, C
Y
, C
Z
Body force coecients
p, q, r Non-dimensional roll, pitch, and yaw rates about the body axis
Dihedral
C
x
, C
y
, C
z
Body axes
C
Ltrim
Trim lift coecient
trim
Trim angle of attack
q
Free stream dynamic pressure

W Weight
S Reference planform area
I
x
, I
y
, I
z
Moments of inertia about body axis frame
I
xz
Product of inertia
CG Center of gravity
d
L Elemental lift
ds Width of lattice
s Start of lattice
e End of lattice
N Number of elements
X, Y, Z Body axis forces
dy, dz Elemental lengths used for integration of loading
x
cg
, y
cg
, z
cg
Coordinates of the CG from reference point
C
D,0
Prole drag coecient
C
D
Drag coecient
b Reference span
l, m, n Moments about C
x
, C
y
, and C
z
C
l
, C
m
, C
n
Moment coecients
X Dimensionalized body axis force vector
Dimensionalized stability axis force vector

x
pitch
Pitch centroid
x
3c/4
Three quarter chord control point
a,1
Angle of attack for an additional loading of C
L
= 1
xi
Chapter 1
Introduction
Traditionally, simulation of ight dynamics makes use of either linearizations and the use of
aerodynamic stability derivatives
1, 2
or the use of look-up tables generated for a given air-
craft. In-the-loop aerodynamic calculation using even linear aerodynamic approaches such as
three-dimensional vortex-lattice or panel methods is computationally expensive. Besides these
methods are not suitable for post-stall ight conditions.
Simulation of ight dynamics at post-stall conditions continues to be an important goal.
3
Current approaches
3
to post-stall ight simulation typically involve summation of static eects,
such as angle of attack and control position, with dynamic eects, such as angular rate. For
transport aircraft, the typical practice
3
is to obtain static eects from wind tunnel measurements
and dynamic eects from empirical methods or from ight test data of small-amplitude dynamic
maneuvers.
The current research takes a dierent approach, in which post-stall aerodynamics of the
multiple-lifting-surface conguration is simulated at every time step of the solution of the ight
equations of motion (EOM). Given the instantaneous angles of attack and sideslip and the
angular-velocity components, the post-stall method predicts the aerodynamic forces and mo-
ments on the aircraft largely without the use of empiricism. Inputs to the aerodynamic predic-
tion method include planform-geometry details and lift and moment curves for all the airfoil
sections including post-stall information. The post-stall prediction method is based on a decam-
bering approach.
4
This approach, developed at NC State in 2006, which took several minutes to
evaluate a series of angle of attacks, was made signicantly faster
5
in 2008 using lift-distribution
superposition principles, which reduced the run time per angle of attack to a tenth of a second.
The following chapter provides a brief description of the recently developed iterative decam-
bering approach along the improvements made to the computational eciency which built a
foundation for the current methodology. In Chapter 3 the methodology for representation of the
aerodynamics using superposition is presented for six degree of freedom (DOF) ight experienc-
1
ing both longitudinal and lateral/directional motion. In Chapter 4 the non-linear dynamics are
compared with a widely used vortex lattice method (VLM) for verication in a linear regime,
and several post-stall examples are explored. The motivation behind the current research stems
from a necessity for a post-stall prediction method that can be used in conjunction with an
ordinary dierential equation (ODE) solver for a real-time ight simulation.
2
Chapter 2
Previous Work
The motivation behind the current research stems from a necessity for the development of a
method to nd the aerodynamic loading due to sideslip and angular velocities that an aircraft
experiences during six DOF ight. The previous research eorts have developed a post-stall
prediction method capable of modeling the aerodynamic loading due to changes in angle of
attack. If the loading aects of sideslip and angular velocity can be taken into account, the
load distribution an aircraft experiences can be summed to nd the total forces and moments
at each time step of the simulation. The integrated loading can then be used in conjunction
with an ODE solver for real-time ight simulation. The previous work having established a
foundation for the current methodology is discussed briey in this chapter.
2.1 Use of Superposition to Obtain Lift Distributions
This section includes background information on the elements of applied aerodynamics and
mathematics relevant to the development of the current method, namely lift superposition, and
is provided here for completeness.
2.1.1 Review of Lift Superposition
The concept of basic and additional lift distributions is described in several references.
68
The
use of this concept enables the determination of the lift distribution at any ight state using a
simple, semi-analytical approach.
Within the assumption of linear aerodynamics (linear C
l
- variation and linear C
l
- re-
lationship), the spanwise distribution of bound circulation (or alternatively, lift distribution)
over a wing can be expressed as a sum of two contributions: i) basic distribution,
b
(y), and ii)
additional distribution,
a
(y):
3
(y) =
b
(y) +
a
(y) (2.1)
The basic distribution,
b
, is the distribution at C
L
= 0, and is the result of spanwise vari-
ations in geometric twist, aerodynamic twist due to camber, and ap deections. Furthermore,
the
b
distributions due to twist, camber, or ap deection, scale linearly with that particular
parameter, and individual
b
distributions can be added to obtain the total
b
distribution. For
example, the total
b
due to wing twist, spanwise camber variation, and ap-angle variation is
simply the sum of the individual
b
distributions:
b
(y) =
b,twist
(y) +
b,camber
(y) +
b,flap
(y) (2.2)
The additional distribution,
a
, is due to changes to for the wing with zero geometric
and aerodynamic twist. It is, therefore, independent of geometric and aerodynamic twist, and
scales with wing C
L
. Thus, the additional distribution for C
L
= 1, written as
a,1
, can be
precomputed for a wing and used to compute the
a
for any C
L
, as follows:
a
(y) = C
L
a,1
(y) (2.3)
If the component of the induced velocities along the freestream direction, , are assumed to
be small compared to V
, then the magnitude of the local loading is proportional to the local

distribution:
L
(y) = (V
+ (y))(y) V
(y) (2.4)
which results in the following linear relationship between and the local lift coecient, C
l
:
C
l
(y) =
2(y)
c(y)V
(2.5)
It is, therefore, possible to write the spanwise C
l
distribution using superposition as follows:
C
l
(y) = C
lb,twist
(y) + C
lb,camber
(y) + C
lb,flap
(y)
+ C
L
C
la,1
(y) (2.6)
2.2 Post-stall aerodynamic prediction
The ability of linear aerodynamic methods such as lifting-line theory (LLT), Weissingers
method, and vortex-lattice methods (VLM) to successfully predict the lift and induced drag
4
behavior of medium to high aspect ratio wings is well established. In these methods, a linear lift
curve with a slope of approximately 2 per radian is typically assumed for the airfoil sections
that form the wings. For several decades, researchers have sought to extend the capability of
these linear prediction methods to include the aerodynamic analysis of wings with nonlinear
airfoil lift curves. These eorts were motivated by the desire to predict stall and post-stall
aerodynamic characteristics of wings using experimental or computational aerodynamic data
for the airfoil sections at post-stall conditions. It is recognized that the ow over a wing at post-
stall conditions is highly three dimensional and the use of a quasi-two-dimensional approach
represents a signicant approximation. The impetus for such a prediction method, however, is
provided by the need for rapid aerodynamic prediction capabilities for such high-alpha condi-
tions for aircraft stability and control, simulations, and in the early phases of vehicle design.
Furthermore, even high-order computational uid dynamics (CFD) techniques are only now
approaching the stage where they can be reliably used for high-alpha aerodynamic prediction.
These CFD high-alpha analyses, however, require massive computing resources and signicant
time for analysis at even a single angle of attack. Thus the search for rapid, albeit approximate,
approaches for stall and post-stall prediction of wings using known section data continues to
be of interest.
The traditional approaches for extending linear aerodynamic prediction methods to handle
nonlinear and post-stall airfoil lift curves can be broadly classied into two kinds: the iterative
-distribution approach
916
and the -correction approach.
17, 18
In the rst approach, a lift
distribution is rst assumed on the wing. The distribution is then iteratively corrected by
determining the eective- distribution using the nonlinear airfoil lift curve. In the second
approach, the deviation of the airfoil nonlinear lift curve from the potential-ow linear lift
curve is used to apply a correction to the local at each section of the wing. This scheme
proved to be more versatile since it was applicable to Weissingers method, VLM, as well as
lifting-line theory (LLT) formulations. As a result, it can be used on swept, low aspect ratio
wings and multiple-wing congurations.
The following sections provide brief descriptions of the more recently developed iterative
decambering approach along with the improvements made in the computational eciency.
2.2.1 Illustration of the Decambering Concept
In 2006 at NC State, Mukherjee and Gopalarathnam developed a decambering approach for
predicting post-stall aerodynamic characteristics of wings using known section data.
4
In this
approach, the chordwise camber distribution at each section of the wing is reduced to account
for the viscous eects at high angles of attack. This approach is similar in concept to the
-correction approach and can be incorporated in LLT, Weissingers method, and VLM. It
5
diers from the -correction approach in its capability to use both the C
l
and C
m
data for
the section, and in the use of a two-variable function for the decambering. Also, unlike all the
earlier methods, the approach in Ref. 4 uses a multidimensional Newton iteration that accounts
for the cross-coupling eects between the sections in predicting the decambering for each step
in the iteration. In addition, a novel scheme was developed for computing the residuals for
the iteration that brings to light multiple solutions at post-stall conditions during the iteration
process itself rather than as a consequence of using multiple starting solutions.
This section, adapted from Ref. 4 and included here for completeness, provides an illustration
of the decambering approach. It is illustrative to examine this approach for the two-dimensional
situation rst because the approach as applied to the ow past a three-dimensional nite wing
will be described in the following section.
With increasing angle of attack, the boundary layer on the upper surface of an airfoil
thickens and nally separates. It is this ow separation that causes the viscous C
l
and C
m
to deviate from the potential-ow theory predictions. These deviations can be related to the
eective change in the chordwise camber distribution due to the boundary-layer displacement
thickness and separation. If the eective decambering is taken into account, then a potential-
ow prediction for the decambered airfoil will closely match the viscous C
l
and C
m
for the
high- ow past the original airfoil shape. This decambering idea served as the basis for the
formulation of the current approach for the three-dimensional ow problem.
While the camber reduction due to the boundary layer on an airfoil can be determined from
computational analyses, no such detailed information is available from wind tunnel results.
Wind tunnel results for airfoils typically consist of only the C
l
- and C
m
- curves. This section
discusses the approach for determining an equivalent camber reduction from the C
l
- and
C
m
- data for an airfoil. More specically, the eective decambering for a particular is
computed using the deviations of the viscous C
l
and C
m
from the potential-ow predictions for
that airfoil. These deviations in C
l
and C
m
are denoted by C
l
and C
m
respectively.
In the current method, the eective decambering of an airfoil is approximated using a
function of two variables,
1
and
2
, as shown in Fig. 2.1. These two linear functions are
added to obtain the nal decambering function. The reason for using two variables is that the
decambering is determined from two pieces of information: the C
l
and the C
m
for the under
consideration. Of course, this approximation will not match the actual viscous decambering,
but the objective here is only to nd an equivalent camber reduction in order to match the
viscous C
l
and C
m
for the under consideration.
The incremental eects of
1
and
2
on the changes to C
l
and C
m
for a given can be
computed reasonably well using thin airfoil theory and a three-term Fourier series approximation
for a at plate with a ap deection.
19
For any given , C
l
and C
m
are dened as the
dierences between the viscous and the potential-ow predictions for C
l
and C
m
as follows:
6
x/c 0 1
2
x
2
Decambering function 2
x/c 0 1
1
Decambering function 1
Figure 2.1: Schematic diagram of decambering functions 1 and 2 (
1
and
2
are negative as
shown and exaggerated for clarity).
C
l
= (C
l
)
viscous
(C
l
)
potential
(2.7)
C
m
= (C
m
)
viscous
(C
m
)
potential
(2.8)
If C
l
and C
m
are known for a given , then the values of
1
and
2
in radians can be
written as:
2
=
C
m
1
4
sin 2
2
1
2
sin
2
(2.9)
1
=
C
l
[2(
2
) + 2 sin
2
]
2
2
(2.10)
where,
2
is the angular location in radians of the start point for the second decambering
function and can be expressed in terms of its x/c-location, x
2
, as follows:
2
= cos
1
(1 2x
2
); x
2
= 0.8 (2.11)
In the current work, x
2
is arbitrarily assumed to be 0.8, although typically any value from 0.5
to 0.9 works well.
Thus, if the potential-ow and viscous-ow C
l
- and C
m
- data for an airfoil are available,
the decambering function dened by
1
and
2
, at each can be determined. In the following
subsection, this decambering approach is extended to the analysis of multiple lifting surfaces
and the decambering at each wing section is evaluated in an iterative fashion.
7
2.2.2 Decambering Applied to a 3D Wing
The objective of the decambering approach was to incorporate the two-variable decambering
function in a three-dimensional analysis method such as a vortex lattice method (VLM) in an
iterative fashion. In a typical VLM, the lifting surface is divided into several spanwise and
chordwise lattices. Associated with each lattice is a horseshoe vortex. Each spanwise section j
(composed of a row of chordwise lattices) has two variables,
1j
and
2j
, for dening the local
decambered geometry at that section.
Unlike in the two-dimensional illustration, where the
1
and
2
were selected to match the
dierences between the potential-ow and the viscous-ow results, in the three-dimensional
case, changing a on one section is likely to have a signicant eect on the neighboring sections
and on the sections of the downstream lifting surfaces. To account for these eects, a 2N-
dimensional Newton iteration is used to predict the
1
and
2
at each of the N sections of all
the wings so that the residuals, C
l
and C
m
, at these sections approach zero as the iteration
progresses. A 2N 2N matrix equation, as shown in Eq. 2.12, is solved at each step of the
Newton iteration.
20
J x = F (2.12)
In this equation, F is a 2N-dimensional vector containing the residuals of the functions f
i
to be
zeroed, x is the 2N-dimensional vector containing the corrections required to the 2N variables
x
i
to bring the elements of vector F closer to zero, and J is the 2N2N Jacobian of the system
containing the gradient information.
The Jacobian is partitioned into four submatrices as shown in Eq. 2.13. Eqs. 2.142.17 show
the elements of the four submatrices to illustrate the computation of the changes to C
l
and
C
m
at section i due to small perturbations to the decambering variables
1
and
2
at section
j.
J =
_
J
l1
J
l2
J
m1
J
m2
_
(2.13)
(J
l1
)
i,j
=
C
li
1,j
=
(C
lp
)
i
(C
ls
)
i
[(
1s
)
j
+ p] (
1s
)
j
(2.14)
(J
m1
)
i,j
=
C
mi
1,j
=
(C
mp
)
i
(C
ms
)
i
[(
1s
)
j
+ p] (
1s
)
j
(2.15)
(J
l2
)
i,j
=
C
li
2,j
=
(C
lp
)
i
(C
ls
)
i
[(
2s
)
j
+ p] (
2s
)
j
(2.16)
8
C
l
C
ls
C
lp
C
lt,2
C
lt,1
+ p
s
=
t,1

p

t,2
C
l,2
C
l,1
Trajectory line
Airfoil
(a)
C
l
L1
A
L2
1
2
3
L3
B
(b)
Figure 2.2: (a) Illustration of the dierences in computation of the residuals. (b) Illustration
of the dierent ways in which trajectory lines can intersect the airfoil C
l
- curve.
(J
m2
)
i,j
=
C
mi
2,j
=
(C
mp
)
i
(C
ms
)
i
[(
2s
)
j
+ p] (
2s
)
j
(2.17)
For each step of the iteration, F and J are determined, and x is computed using Eq. 2.12.
The corrections are then applied to the values of
1
and
2
for all the sections in an eort
to bring the residuals closer to zero. The iteration procedure can be summarized using the
following steps and Fig. 2.2(a):
1. Assume starting values of the decambering variables,
1
and
2
, for each section of each
wing; for example, section j has starting values denoted by (
1s
)
j
and (
2s
)
j
.
2. Compute, using VLM, the aerodynamic characteristics of the lifting-surface conguration,
9
each section of which has been decambered by
1s
and
2s
for that section. The VLM
accounts for the decambering by appropriately rotating the unit normal vector of each
lattice. The VLM analysis provides the C
l
and C
m
of each section as output. These are
the starting values for the current step of the iteration and are denoted by (C
ls
)
j
and
(C
ms
)
j
for section j. (C
ls
)
j
is shown in Fig. 2.2(a).
3. Compute the starting values of the eective angle of attack of each section, denoted by
s
in Fig. 2.2(a), corresponding to the section C
l
; for example, the eective angle of attack
of section j is denoted by (
s
)
j
and is obtained by setting (C
l
)
sec
= (C
ls
)
j
in the following
equation:
eff
=
(C
l
)
sec
a
0
2
_
1

2
+
sin
2
_
+
0l
(2.18)
which describes the relationship between the local C
l
and local for a decambered section
operating in potential ow with a section lift-curve slope of a
0
(typically 2 per radian),
zero-lift angle of attack of
0l
for the original section without decambering, and decam-
bering variables of
1
and
2
. In Eq. 2.18, the last three terms together represent the
zero-lift angle of attack of the decambered section.
4. Perturb
1
at section j by adding a small perturbation p.
5. Compute the wing aerodynamic characteristics with the perturbed decambering using the
VLM; the resulting C
l
and C
m
for section j are denoted by (C
lp
)
j
and (C
mp
)
j
. (C
lp
)
j
is shown in Fig. 2.2(a). Hence, compute the j
th
column of J
l1
and J
m1
using Eqs. 2.14
and 2.15.
6. Residuals: Compute the eective angle of attack of each section for the perturbed decam-
bering, denoted in Fig. 2.2(a) by
p
; for example, the eective angle of attack of section j
is obtained by setting (C
lsec
) = (C
lp
)
j
in Eq. 2.18. This eective angle of attack is denoted
by (
p
)
j
for section j. The line joining the points [
s
,C
ls
] and [
p
,C
lp
] for any section
is called the trajectory line for that section, as it determines the linearized trajectory
of how a point on the C
l
- curve dened by the section
eff
and section C
l
moves with
changes to
1
on that section. This trajectory line is illustrated in Fig. 2.2(a). There-
fore, the target C
l
, (C
lt,2
)
j
, of section j for example, is the point of intersection between
the trajectory line for section j and the airfoil lift curve for the section as illustrated in
Fig. 2.2(a). The corresponding is (
t,2
)
j
, which is the of the point of intersection.
The target pitching-moment coecient, (C
mt,2
)
j
, is C
m
on the airfoil C
m
- curve corre-
sponding to (
t,2
)
j
. The residuals are now computed as (C
l,2
)
j
= (C
ls
)
j
(C
lt,2
)
j
and
(C
m,2
)
j
= (C
ms
)
j
(C
mt,1
)
j
.
7. Reset the value of
1
at section j to (
1s
)
j
.
8. Cycle through steps 58 for all values of the section index j to compute all the columns
10
of J
l1
and J
m1
.
9. Repeat steps 59 now perturbing
2
instead of
1
to compute J
l2
and J
m2
. In this process,
the computation of the residuals for in step 7 is ignored, as they have already been
computed.
10. Using the Newton equation in Eq. 2.12, compute the correction vector x. Update the
values of
1s
and
2s
by adding the correction vector x multiplied by a user-specied
damping factor D (also referred to under-relaxation factor) and go to step 2.
This iteration process is carried out until all the residuals have converged to a specied tolerance.
In the current work a damping factor of 0.1 and a tolerance of 0.001 has been used in all the
examples.
2.2.3 Multiple intersections with inclined trajectory line
Figure 2.2(b) illustrates an important consequence of using an inclined trajectory line for de-
termining the target C
l
. Three possible ways in which the trajectory line may intersect the
airfoil lift curve are illustrated in Fig. 2.2(b): (i) the trajectory line marked as L1 intersects
the airfoil lift curve at a single pre-stall point, (ii) the trajectory line marked as L2 intersects
the airfoil lift curve at multiple points, and (iii) the trajectory line marked as L3 intersects
the airfoil lift curve at a single point in the post-stall region. While there is no ambiguity in
determining the values of the target C
l
for lines L1 and L3, there clearly are three possible
choices for the target C
l
for line L2. This illustration clearly demonstrates that it is possible to
obtain multiple solutions for post-stall conditions; a fact, that was apparently rst suggested by
von Karman (see Ref. 12) and has since been discussed by several researchers.
1116, 21
However,
the approach of Ref. 4 is novel because this approach is believed to be the rst one in which
the possibility of multiple solutions for high angles of attack is brought to light right during the
iteration process. Earlier approaches were able to identify the existence of multiple solutions
only as a result of obtaining multiple nal converged solutions with dierent initial conditions
for the iteration procedure.
The existence of multiple intersections also presents a dilemma in choosing an appropriate
target C
l
from the possible multiple solutions. The following procedure was developed for
making the choice during the iteration process. At each step of the iteration, each of the
sections on all of the wings is examined to identify those with single intersections, as identied
by points A and B in Fig. 2.2(b). The target C
l
values for these sections are identied without
ambiguity. Using a logical switch called lpoststall in the code, each of these sections are
also tagged as stalledor unstalled depending on whether the for the intersection point
is greater than or less than the for C
lmax
. For example, lpoststall is tagged unstalled for
point A and stalled for point B in Fig. 2.2(b). The sections with multiple intersections are
11
then examined. Using the trajectory line L2 in Fig. 2.2(b) for example, the intersection point
1 is chosen if the logical switch lpoststall for the section is unstalled and the intersection
point 3 is chosen if the logical switch for the section is stalled.
Next, another logic is applied in which all the sections of the wings are scanned to identify
sets of contiguous sections, all of which have multiple intersections and all of which are also
tagged as unstalled. If any of these sets of contiguous sections are bound on both sides by
sections tagged as stalled, then all the sections in this set are switched to stalled. This logic
largely removed any occurrence of unstalled regions with multiple-intersections sandwiched
between two stalled regions.
The values of the logical switch for all the sections are carried over from one iteration to the
next as well as from one to the next when performing the analysis for a sequence of angles
of attack. Thus, if a section gets tagged as stalled at any point in the iteration, it remains
tagged as stalled unless the section ends up with a trajectory line like L1 in Fig. 2.2(b) when
it gets switched to unstalled.
Although the methodology uses a two-variable decambering function, for cases where the
experimental or computational viscous data for the airfoil section does not have C
m
information,
or for cases where the decambering approach is applied to an analysis method that cannot
compute the section pitching moments (e.g. LLT or a Weissingers method), the decambering
is modeled as a function of a single variable
1
;
2
is set to zero. In this case, the viscous
decambering function becomes similar to that used in the -reduction approach.
17, 18
The
inclined trajectory line for computing the residuals is still applicable when the single-variable
decambering function is used, and this feature makes the approach of Ref. 4 dierent from those
developed earlier.
2.3 Improvements to the Decambering Approach
Once the model for post stall prediction had been developed,
4
it was apparent that this was
not suitable for real-time simulation. In 2008 advancements by Gopalarathnam and Segawa
5
improved the computational eciency in the decambering approach developed by Mukherjee
and Gopalarathnam.
4
In their work, well-known superposition principles were used to calculate
spanwise lift distributions, which assumes a linear C
l
- relationship for each wing section.
Thus the computational improvement comes at a cost of making minor approximations to the
aerodynamics. With this approach, the VLM is used to pre-compute and store the additional
lift distribution arising from changes to the wing angle of attack and basic lift distributions
arising from decambering applied at each of the wing sections. These stored solutions are then
sucient for performing the post-stall wing computations without the need to use the VLM
again. In particular, with the improved approach, the Jacobian matrix is computed semi-
12
analytically, which reduces computation time. It is also shown that the Jacobian matrix, in
this approximate approach, is independent of and decambering. As a result, the Jacobian
needs to be computed only once and can be reused for any other .
2.3.1 Lift Superposition for Improved Computational Eciency
The implementation of lift superposition principles enables the rapid determination of the
Jacobian matrix for the decambering approach and avoids the need to use the VLM once
elementary basic and additional lift distributions are computed (using the VLM) and stored.
In the current work, the lift-superposition idea has been used in the decambering approach with
just a single variable,
1
, for decambering at each section;
2
has been set to zero.
The concept of superposition of lift distributions using basic and additional loading was
previously described in Section 2.1. The advantage of using the superposition concept is that the
net C
l
distribution for a particular wing C
L
can be posed in terms of the unknown decambering
variables. Using only the
1
variables for illustration and assuming N sections on the wing, the
expression for the net C
l
distribution is:
C
l
= C
L
C
la,1
+ C
lb,0
+ C
lb,1
1,1
+ C
lb,2
1,2
+ + C
lb,N
1,N
(2.19)
where, C
lb,0
is the zero-decambering basic C
l
distribution due to geometric twist and aerody-
namic twist resulting from spanwise changes to the wing airfoil. The increment in basic C
l
distribution due a unit
1
for section i is denoted by C
lb,i
.
While Eq. 2.19 is expressed in terms of the wing C
L
, for post-stall computations at a given
wing angle of attack,
w
, it is necessary to write the wing C
L
in terms of
w
, as follows:
C
L
= a(
w
b,0
(
b,1
1,1
+
b,2
1,2
+ +
b,N
1,N
)) (2.20)
where, a is the wing lift-curve slope (a = 1/
a,1
),
b,0
is the wing angle of attack corresponding
to the zero-decambering basic C
l
distribution and
b,i
is the wing angle of attack corresponding
to the increment in basic C
l
distribution due a unit
1
for section i.
With the C
l
distribution expressed in terms of
w
and the decambering variables
1,i
, it is
straightforward to compute the elements of the Jacobian matrix, as shown below:
(J
l1
)
i,j
=
C
li
1,j
= a
b,j
C
la,1
(i) + C
lb,j
(i) (2.21)
where C
lb,j
(i) is the value at section i of the basic C
l
distribution due to a unit
1
at section
j and C
la,1
(i) is the value at section i of the C
la,1
distribution. It is seen that the Jacobian
is independent of
w
, airfoil choice, wing twist and decambering. Additionally, the slope of
the trajectory line for any section i is also independent of
w
, airfoil choice, wing twist, and
13
decambering, and can be written as:
(
dC
l
d
)
traj,i
=
b,i
C
la,1
(i)/
a
+ C
lb,i
(i)
C
lb,i
(i)/a
0
b,i
C
la,1
(i)/(
a
a
0
) 1
(2.22)
where a
0
is the two-dimensional lift curve slope in inviscid ow, which is typically close to 2
per radian.
As a result, the Jacobian and the trajectory-line slopes need to be computed only once and
can be reused for other angles of attack or for studying the eects of changes to the airfoils
or wing twist. This improvement in computational eciency not only signicantly reduced
computational time but also enables performing the post-stall computations without the need
to retain the VLM in the iteration process.
14
Chapter 3
Simulation of Forces and Moments
Using Superposition
As previously discussed, aircraft simulations are generally carried out using low delity meth-
ods involving linearizations which are invalid in post-stall regimes. The current research eorts
have made use of non-linear EOM which require the knowledge of the aircraft loading at every
timestep of the ight simulation. This loading is due to geometric eects, orientation, and
angular velocities which can be readily modeled in vortex-lattice or Weissinger methods. How-
ever, in the current eort, the challenge was to incorporate these eects using pre-computed
basic and additional loadings. This is because it is undesirable for the VLM to be used for
in-the-loop calculation of the post-stall aerodynamics, due to computational time constraints
when real-time simulation is required. Instead, to nd the overall loading that an aircraft expe-
riences at a particular ight state, the pre-computed basic and additional lift distributions are
appropriately superposed. This lift distribution is then integrated to obtain the corresponding
forces and moments. Although superposition also makes use of linearizations, the lift distribu-
tion obtained can be corrected to account for non-linear eects in post stall situations using
the iterative decambering method discussed in Chapter 2. While post-stall simulations are the
ultimate goal, this chapter focuses on the formulation of modeling the eects of ight motion
in linear regimes.
Modeling the eects of ight motion without force and moment derivatives is a complicated
process and requires an accurate model with enough versatility to represent the aircraft loading
in any phase of ight. In linear regimes, this loading is unique and depends on its geometry
and specic ight parameters including velocity, orientation, and angular rates. The overall lift
distribution can be calculated by scaling stored basic and additional lift distributions due to
variations in these ight parameters. For instance, the loading that an aircraft experiences due
to the actual sideslip angle can be modeled by a basic lift distribution due to a sideslip angle
15
of 1 degree and scaled by the sideslip angle it experiences (in degrees) at any moment during
ight. For clarity, each contribution is studied separately. The approach for the representation
of these eects using superposition of basic and additional lift distributions is laid out in this
chapter and examples for each are given.
In order to verify the formulation, a simple aircraft geometry is chosen and modeled in
AVL,
22
a widely used VLM. The superposition method is then tested to nd the instantaneous
lift distributions for a given orientation and set of angular rates. Dierent examples pertaining
to each type of motion are given along with some mixed examples. To verify the formulation
pertaining to each type of motion, superposed solution is then compared with that of AVLs.
For example, if the loading due to a specied angle of attack and roll rate is desired, then the
geometry is analyzed in AVL at that angle of attack and roll rate and then compared with the
solution obtained from superposition. It is important to note that AVL is not meant to be
thought of as a truth model or one that can be used for high delity simulations, but more of
a resource for load prediction in linear regimes of ight.
This chapter begins with an introduction to AVL (Section 3.1). The aircraft geometry
used in this research is then described in Section 3.2 and the assumptions and conventions are
dened in Section 3.3. Longitudinal contributions to loading are considered next in Section 3.5;
the models for loading due to sideslip and lateral/directional motion in Section 3.6. In both
Sections 3.5 and 3.6, the formulation for each loading contribution is dened, and simulated lift
distributions from superposition are compared with those obtained from AVL.
3.1 AVL
Athena Vortex Lattice, commonly referred to as AVL,
22
is an open-source code developed by
Drela and Youngren. AVL is used for the aerodynamic and ight dynamic analysis of rigid-
body xed-wing aircraft. This versatile software and simple interface makes use of an extended
vortex lattice model to simulate the aerodynamics and ight characteristics of lifting surface
congurations in linear regimes of ight. Outputs of lift distributions along with total force
and moment coecients can be calculated for any specied ight condition. If the airplane
mass and inertia data are known along with atmospheric properties, then a full eigenmode
analysis is possible allowing the user to analyze the aircrafts ight modes such as the phugoid
and dutch roll modes, among other motions. An important observation when calculating the
ight dynamics of aircraft modes in AVL, is that the ight equilibrium results in zero vertical
velocity, v. It is obvious, however, that if sucient thrust is not applied then a trimmed aircraft
will experience a descending glide. For congruency of comparison, the superposition model is
augmented with a constant thrust placed at the centerline equal and opposite to the trimmed
X force. This results in a zeroed trim vertical velocity v.
16
It is also important to note that AVL, like many other VLM codes, uses second-order
terms in the calculation of lift and other forces and moments. The current approach based on
superposition ignores these second order terms. Consequently, for a given it is not expected
that the C
L
or C
D
predicted by AVL will agree exactly with that predicted by the superposition
method. Conversely for a given C
L
, it is not expected that the C
D
or the prescribed will
match between the two methods. However, the results are quite close. Noticeable dierences
will also be seen in cases where asymmetric loading is prevalent. Since AVL is a vortex lattice
method, each surface contains spanwise and chordwise horseshoe vortices. Each horseshoe
vortex contains a bound vortex connected to two trailing vortex legs which extend to innity.
The issue is that a portion of the trailing vortex legs modeled in AVL are bound to the lifting
surface, creating a side force that is not modeled using the current superposition approach.
Therefore, asymmetric loading will result in a deviation between the side force, rolling moment,
and yawing moment obtained from AVL and the superposition approach. The details of this
portion of the AVL model fall outside of the scope of this research and will be lumped along
with the other second order eects in the discussions presented in the rest of this thesis.
In this work, angular rates are described in non-dimensional form, p = pb/(2V
), q =
qc/(2V
), r = rb/(2V
). Table 3.1 shows the limits recommended by AVL to stay within

the assumptions of quasi-steady aerodynamics. Specically, this means that for any oscillatory
motion, the rates are small enough for the ow to satisfy quasi-steady assumptions. This is
not a drawback for simulation, since this constraint holds for nearly all ight maneuvers. Any
motion resulting in angular rates outside of these limits should be interpreted with caution.
22
Table 3.1: Limits on angular rate inputs in AVL
Parameter limit
p 0.10
q 0.03
r 0.25
A important observation pertaining to the sign convention used by AVL is that in the case
of a surface given some dihedral, , a positive value of the y-component of this distribution is
in the negative y-direction. Therefore C
Y
= C
l
sin where C
l
used here represents the local
lift coecient. More on sign conventions will be discussed in Section 3.3.
Overall, AVL is a useful tool for this research since its intuitive interface allows for fast
modeling and analysis. Once a geometry is specied, the basic and additional lift distributions
17
required for superposition can be computed, stored, and scaled to simulate the loading for a
specied ight condition in a linear regime. The geometry can then be directly analyzed with
AVL at several ight conditions and the lift distributions are compared with the superposed
solutions. Once veried, superposition can be used to nd the forces and moments necessary to
drive the xed wing standard EOM, given in Chapter 4. The non-linear EOM can be evaluated
in linear regimes and compared with the linearized solution obtained from AVL in order to
test the methodology. When the method has been veried, then the next step is simulation
in post-stall using the basic and additional lift distributions in conjunction with the iterative
decambering approach and the ODE.
3.2 Denition of Model used for Verication
For simplicity, the current research uses a simple aircraft model. The goal of this particular
phase of the research was to develop the ability to use superposition to nd the loading at
any ight state while using non-linear EOM. The current geometry was inspired by a general
aviation aircraft from the literature
23
and altered to have constant chord and zero sweep. No
geometric or aerodynamic twist was applied to the lifting surfaces and the conguration was
given a constant thrust along C
x
instead of a propeller driven aircraft given in the text. All
propeller wash eects are ignored. The geometry for the standard conguration is shown in
Figure 3.1and details of the geometry are shown in Table 3.2.
Figure 3.1: Geometry plot.
18
Table 3.2: Aircraft Conguration Parameters
Parameter Value Parameter Value
m 1200 kg 4.8
S 18.0 m
2
t
inc
-2.5
b 12.0 m C
Ltrim
0.29
AR 8.0
trim
3.5
c 1.5 m I
xx
1000 kgm
2
x
cg
0.38 m I
yy
4100 kgm
2
y
cg
0.00 m I
zz
4800 kgm
2
z
cg
0.00 m I
xz
0.0 kgm
2
This conguration has a wing, horizontal tail, and vertical tail, all of rectangular planform
with symmetric airfoils. The root chords of all lifting surfaces are collinear with C
x
and in line
with the CG which is placed at the wing quarter-chord. The main wing is also given a slight
dihedral, which adds wing contributions when experiencing lateral/directional motion, which
is not present when = 0. There is no twist in any of the lifting surfaces, but an incidence is
applied to the horizontal tail so that the aircraft can trim at a C
L
appropriate for the aircrafts
weight and reference ight velocity. For a tail incidence specied in Table 3.2, the aircraft trims
at about a C
Ltrim
= 0.29 corresponding to an
trim
= 3.5
. To nd the reference velocity, the

lifting force is set to the weight of the aircraft and the lift coecient is set to C
Ltrim
, shown in
Eq. 3.1:
C
Ltrim
=
W
q
S
(3.1)
where q
is the free-stream dynamic pressure or q
= 1/2V
2
. Solving for the V
, Eq. 3.2
becomes:
V
trim
=
2W
C
Ltrim
S
(3.2)
3.3 Conventions and Assumptions
To obtain the forces and moments on an aircraft at a particular ight state, certain assumptions
and conventions must rst be established. The rigid body equations used to represent 6DOF
motion (given in Section 4.1) are in the body axes frame. In this frame, the x-axis is xed to
a reference line on the body. In the current model, the origin is coincident with the center of
gravity which is located at the wing-root quarter-chord. The Cx is placed along the centerline
19
and pointing out of the nose of the aircraft. Cy points out of the right wing and Cz points down.
The lift distributions obtained from AVL are in the stability axes frame and each section-wise
lift coecient is normal to the panel and V
. In the stability axes frame, Cx is in the direction

of ight velocity in the reference state, which means that both Cx and Cz are tilted away from
those of the body axes by the angle
trim
. Parameters taken in the stability frame are denoted
with a prime (). For example, the rolling moment about the x-axis of the stability frame is C
l
.
The prime symbol is used for stability instead of the body since the equations of motion are in
the body frame and consequently the body axis parameters are more prevalent in this work.
The following assumptions are also used in the methodology of this research:
1. The models used are for rigid-body xed-wing aircraft.
2. The free-stream air is steady with no disturbances.
3. The mass of the aircraft and center of gravity remain constant throughout a given analysis.
4. The aircraft is symmetric about the C
xz
plane.
3.4 Integration of Loading
It is well known that for an airfoil, the aerodynamic center is at the quarter-chord. Therefore
the spanwise lift distributions are placed along the quarter-chord of each section. Let

dL be the
elemental lift vector corresponding to each chordwise panel. It is important to note that, while
this is called the local lift vector, it is not necessarily in the direction of lift but specically
normal to the panel and V
. Depending on the dihedral () of the surface, this could be

acting sideways such as in the case of a vertical tail where = /2. Knowing the spanwise C
l
distribution and the atmospheric properties, the elemental lift distribution is:
dL = q
cC
l
ds (3.3)
where the dierential length, ds, is the distance between start location, s, and the end location,
e, for each panel.
20
dy = (y)
e
(y)
s
(3.4)
dz = (z)
e
(z)
s
(3.5)
ds =
_
dy
2
+ dz
2
(3.6)
Therefore, the total aircraft lift is given as:
L =
N
j=1
dL
dy
ds
= q
j=1
cC
l
dy
(3.7)
and subsequently the aircraft lift coecient:
C
L
= L/(q
S)
=
1
S
N
j=1
cC
l
dy
= C
Z
(3.8)
As previously mentioned, positive values of section lift coecient along C
z
are in the negative
y direction. Therefore the side force, Y , is given as:
Y =
N
j=1
dL
dz
ds
= q
j=1
cC
l
dz
(3.9)
and the side force coecient is:
C
Y
= Y/(q
S)
=
1
S
N
j=1
cC
l
dz
(3.10)
21
For simplicity, the drag force is estimated and lumped at the CG. Note that this simplication
will cause a noticeable deviation between the values of C
X
and C
Z
obtained from AVL which
makes use of second order terms, and those obtained for superposition. Equation 3.11 represents
the estimation of drag for load simulation.
C
D
= C
D,0
+
(C
Y
)
2
+ (C
L
)
2
eAR
= C
X
(3.11)
Similarly, the moments about each axis can be obtained from the lift distributions and the
moment arms, x, y, and z, which are the corresponding distances from the center of gravity to
each panels quarter-chord location. The rolling moment in the stability frame, l
, is dened as
the sum of the moments about the CG with respect to the x-axis.
l
=
N
j=1
dL(y
dy
ds
+ z
dz
ds
)
= q
j=1
cC
l
(ydy + zdz)
(3.12)
The corresponding rolling moment coecient with respect to the stability axis is:
C
l
= l
/(q
Sb)
=
1
Sb
N
j=1
cC
l
(ydy + zdz)
(3.13)
The pitching moment in the stability frame, m, is the same as the pitching moment about the
body frame, and is dened as the sum of the moments about the y-axis and given as:
m =
N
j=1
dLx
c/4
dy
ds
= q
j=1
cC
l
x
c/4
dy
(3.14)
The corresponding pitching moment coecient is:
22
C
m
= m/(qS c)
=
1
S c
N
j=1
cC
l
x
c/4
dy
(3.15)
The yawing moment in the stability frame, N
S
, is dened as the sum of the moments about
the z-axis.
n
=
N
j=1
dLx
c/4
dz
ds
= q
j=1
cC
l
x
c/4
dz
(3.16)
The corresponding yawing moment coecient in the stability frame is:
C
n
= n
/(qS c)
=
1
Sb
N
j=1
cC
l
x
c/4
dz
(3.17)
The forces and moments in the stability frame can now be converted to the body frame.
Let

X
and

X be the force vector in the stability frame and the body frame, respectively. The
standard transformation from the body axes to the stability axes is:
= A
X (3.18)
where the prime denotes stability frame and A is the transformation matrix:
A =
_
_
cos(
ref
) 0 sin(
ref
)
0 1 0
sin(
ref
) 0 cos(
ref
)
_
_
(3.19)
If X
=
_
D Y L
_
T
and X =
_
X Y Z
_
T
, then Equation 3.18 can be modied to obtain
the body axis forces X.
X = A
1

X
(3.20)
23
The same approach can be used to convert the angular rates and moments from the stability
frame to the body frame.
3.5 Longitudinal Contributions
The longitudinal contributions to aircraft loading in ight are now discussed. These contribu-
tions include twist and incidence (Section 3.5.1), as well as pitch rate (Section 3.5.2).
3.5.1 Modeling the Eect of Section Incidence
Details of the basic loading due to spanwise variations in twist introduced in Section 2.1, are
now explained. The aircraft geometric twist distribution is dened as
tj
. Note that this
parameter is not limited to twist, since a constant twist distribution over a lifting surface would
be equivalent to applying an incidence to that surface. If the twist distribution is known, then
the basic loading due geometric twist distribution is:
C
lb,0
=
N
j=1
tj
C
lt,j
(3.21)
This contribution is already included in the net C
l
distribution given in Eq. 2.19.
3.5.2 Modeling Pitch Rate
The post-stall prediction method of Ref. 5 had to be augmented for modeling the eect of
angular velocities. The eect of pitch rate can be readily modeled in vortex-lattice or Weissinger
method formulations. In the current eort, however, the challenge was to be able to incorporate
the pitch rate eect using pre-computed basic and additional loadings. This is because the VLM
is not used for in-the-loop calculation of the post-stall aerodynamics.
While in a pitching motion, each section of the aircrafts lifting surfaces experiences an
eective change in incidence that is proportional to the distance between its control point (three-
quarter chord point) and the aircraft center of gravity. For positive pitch rate, the sections aft
of the center of gravity see an increase in lift due to an increase in eective incidence, and the
surfaces forward of the center of gravity see a decrease in lift due to a decrease in eective
incidence. If the CG is located close to the wing three-quarter chord location, then a positive
pitch rate would result in zero change in wing lift and a positive change in tail lift, resulting in
a positive change to the aircraft total lift. As the CG is moved aft of the wing, the eect of
pitch rate is to cause a negative change in wing lift and a positive change in tail lift. It can be
seen that there exists a CG location about which a positive pitch rate would cause a negative
24
change in wing lift which would exactly cancel the positive change in tail lift, resulting in zero
change to the aircraft total lift. This location is termed pitch centroid in this thesis.
It can be shown that the eect of pitch rate about an arbitrary CG location can be taken
as the sum of two contributions: (i) basic loading due to the eect of pitch rate about the pitch
centroid resulting in incidence change of sections on the lifting surfaces, but with zero change
to the total lift and (ii) an additional loading due a uniform change to the incidence angles for
all sections of the lifting surfaces due to the CG not coinciding with the pitch centroid. Because
these basic and additional loadings scale with q, they can be pre-computed for a unit q and
stored for use in the post-stall computation.
Using a sign-convention of x pointing forward, if x
pitch
denotes the location of the pitch
centroid, then it can be shown that the eective change in incidence at some section j due to
a unit q is:
j
=
2
c
(x
pitch
x
3c/4,j
) (3.22)
where the x
3c/4,j
is the x-location for the three-quarter chord point of the j
th
section.
When pitching about the pitch centroid, there is no change in aircraft C
L
and the resulting
change in the loading is a basic loading. This basic loading will be the sum of basic loadings due
to each section experiencing an eective change in incidence given by Eq. 3.22. This knowledge,
combined with Eq. 3.22, can be used to determine the location of x
pitch
as follows:
x
pitch
=
N
j=1
b,j
x
3c/4,j
N
j=1
b,j
(3.23)
The basic loading due to a unit q for pitching motion about the pitch centroid is:
C
lb,q
=
N
j=1
j
C
lb,j
(3.24)
and the additional loading due to a unit q due to the CG not coinciding with the pitch centroid
is:
C
la,q
=
C
la,1
a,1
2
c
(x
CG
x
pitch
) (3.25)
The net C
l
distribution, shown without pitch rate-eects in Eq. 2.19, can be modied to
include the added eect of pitch rate as follows:
C
l
= C
L
C
la,1
+ C
lb,0
+ q(C
la,q
+ C
lb,q
) (3.26)
This C
l
distribution can be integrated appropriately to determine the aircraft C
L
and C
m
25
3.5.3 Pitch Rate Example
In order to demonstrate the eectiveness of this approach, the conguration is tested at = 3
and q =0.01. It is important that is specied in this example instead of C

L
. This is because
there will be additional lift resulting from the pitching motion, which means that for a given
, C
L
will be greater. The loading contributions here are:
1. additional loading due to
2. additional loading due to q
3. basic loading due to incidence of the tail
4. basic loading due to q
The basic and additional lift distributions along with the superposed solution are given in
Figs. 3.2(a) and 3.2(b) for the wing and horizontal tail, respectively.
26
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.2
0.4
Additional () + Basic (HT Inc)
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.1
0.2
Additional (q)
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0.05
0
Basic (q)
Wing Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
Superposition VS AVL
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(a) Wing
bt/2 0 bt/2
0.04
0.02
0
bt/2 0 bt/2
0
0.05
0.1
Additional (q)
bt/2 0 bt/2
0
0.2
0.4
Basic (q)
HT Span Location

bt/2 0 bt/2
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(b) Horizontal Tail
Figure 3.2: Breakdown of Surface Loading: = 3
, q = 0.01
27
It was mentioned previously that AVL includes second-order terms in the VLM calculations.
Thus, for a prescribed , the values of C
L
obtained from AVL and from superposition will have
unavoidable discrepancies. For both the wing and tail, superposition underestimates the lift
distributions compared to AVL. The primary contribution from the wing is from the additional
loading due to . The additional and basic loadings due to pitch rate nearly negate each other
for the wing. The horizontal tail, however, sees major contributions from these eects. For this
example, the additional loading due to pitch rate produces an added C
L
=0.156, which comes
largely from the lift distribution on the horizontal tail. A comparison of the force and moment
coecients are given in Table 3.3.
Table 3.3: Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and q
Parameter AVL Superposition
C
L
0.3947 0.3897
C
X
0.0232 0.0124
C
Y
0.0000 0.0000
C
Z
-0.3940 -0.3896
C
l
0.0000 0.0000
C
m
-0.5094 -0.4953
C
n
0.0000 0.0000
As expected, C
L
obtained from superposition is lesser in magnitude than that predicted
by AVL, but only by 1.3%. The value of C
m
obtained from superposition is also smaller in
magnitude than AVLs prediction by 2.8%. The largest discrepency here is found in the C
X
(AVL predicts a value that is 87% smaller than that predicted by the superposition approach).
As mentioned previously in Section 3.4 and 3.1, the drag is estimated without the second
order terms that AVL uses resulting in deviations between the two methods. By accounting
for these second order terms, it is possible to eliminate these discrepencies. However, the
dierences in coecient prediction between the two methods is really not substantial enough
to compromise the simplicity of the approach. To put it into perspective, if the conguration
had a ight velocity of 60 m/s, a -2.8% dierence in pitching moment corresponds to about
-840 Nm. Compared to the total pitching moment at that state of just over -240 kNm, this is a
small discrepency. Even the more substantial dierence, in terms of percentage, in C
X
of 87%
corresponds to a mere 430 N at this ight velocity. Due to consitant discrepencies in C
X
that
result in small disagreements in actual aircraft loading, the eects from the dierence in drag
models between the two methods will not be discussed in the remainder of this thesis.
28
3.6 Lateral/Directional Contributions
The contributions to aircraft loading due to lateral-directional motions and perturbations are
now discussed. These contributions include sideslip (Section 3.6.1), roll rate (Section 3.6.3),
yaw rate (Section 3.6.5). A few mixed examples are also included that tend to occur during
Dutch roll motion (Section 3.6.7).
3.6.1 Modeling Sideslip
When an aircraft is ying in sideslip, each section of the aircrafts lifting surfaces experiences an
eective change in incidence (
,j
) that is proportional to the sine of that sections dihedral
angle,
j
. Note that a wing with no dihedral corresponds to =0 rad and a standard vertical
tail corresponds to a = /2 rad. When a lifting surface has dihedral (0 /2), the
sections right of center have positive -values and the surfaces left of center have negative -
values. That means that for surfaces that are symmetric about the aircraft centerline in positive
sideslip, the sections left of center will have
,j
equal and opposite of those right of center.
The eect that sideslip has on an aircraft can be modeled by the basic loading due to the
aircraft being angularly displaced by a rotation, , about the z-axis. This results in an eective
change in incidence of the sections on the lifting surface, but with zero change in the total lift.
Using the sign convention of Reference 1, that takes positive sideslip to be a ight condition
in which v is positive, it can be shown that the eective incidence at a section due to its local
dihedral angle and a unit is:
,j
= sin(
j
) (3.27)
and can be scaled by the sideslip angle that the conguration experiences in ight. Note that
this does not aect sections without dihedral and that for sections with
j
= /2 rad, the
eective incidence is simply .
Therefore, the basic loading due to a unit sideslip, , is:
C
lb,
=
N
j=1
,j
C
lb,j
(3.28)
The net C
l
distribution, shown without sideslip rate-eects in Eq. 3.26, can be modied to
include the added eect of sideslip as follows:
C
l
= C
L
C
la,1
+ C
lb,0
+ q(C
la,q
+ C
lb,q
) + C
lb,
(3.29)
This C
l
distribution can be integrated appropriately to determine the aircraft force coecients
29
C
L
and C
Y
, as well as the moment coecients C
l
, C
m
, and C
n
.
3.6.2 Sideslip Example
In order to demonstrate the eectiveness of this approach, the conguration is tested at C
L
=0.5
and = 5
. Here, C
L
can be specied which allows the lift distribution results to compare
better than those from the pitch rate example. Instead, the discrepancy for this example is
with . The loading contributions here are:
3. basic loading due to
Figs. 3.3(a), 3.3(b), and 3.3(c) for the wing, horizontal tail and vertical tail, respectively.
30
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
b/2 0 b/2
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
Basic (Sideslip)
Wing Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.65
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(a) Wing
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0.05
0
0.05
0.1
Basic (Sideslip)
HT Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.16
0.18
0.2
0.22
0.24
0.26
0.28
0.3
0.32
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

Superposition
Direct Analysis
(c) Vertical Tail
Figure 3.3: Breakdown of Surface Loading: C
L
= 0.5, = 5
31
The comparison of the two solutions for the wing, horizontal tail and vertical tail are in
close agreement. The dierences in the solution from AVL and from superposition for the
wing and vertical tail are almost indistinguishable. The discrepancy between the solutions for
the horizontal tail is more noticeable, but only experiences a maximum dierence in local lift
coecient of about 0.05 per unit span. While most of the loading for the wing and horizontal tail
still comes from and the tail incidence, sideslip causes signicant eects in these distributions.
Since the wing has dihedral, for a positive sideslip the right side sees an increase in lift due
to an increase in eective incidence and the left side sees a decrease in lift due to an decrease
in eective incidence. However, the horizontal tail has no dihedral, so its contribution to the
basic loading due to sideslip comes from purely from downwash eects from the vertical tail
and wing loading. The vertical tail sees an eective incidence equal to the sideslip. A positive
sideslip produces a positive lift distribution on the vertical tail, in the negative y direction. A
comparison of the force and moment coecients are given above in Table 3.4.
Table 3.4: Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and
C
L
0.5000 0.5000
C
X
0.0432 0.0378
C
Y
-0.0394 -0.0395
C
Z
-0.4982 -0.4987
C
l
-0.0129 -0.0115
C
m
-0.1522 -0.1427
C
n
0.0219 0.0220
The comparison in the table above shows that the two methods agree quite well. There
are noticeable discrepancies in rolling and pitching moment coecient of about -12% and -7%,
respectively. The dierence in pitching moment is consistent with that shown in the pitch rate
example. The dierence in rolling moment coecient is due to the second order eects that
AVL takes into account, mentioned in Section 3.1.
3.6.3 Modeling Roll Rate
While in a rolling motion, each section of the aircrafts lifting surfaces experiences an eective
change in incidence that is proportional to its distance to the centerline, C
x
. For positive roll
rate, the sections right of the centerline experience a positive change in lift due to an increase
in eective incidence, and the surfaces left of the centerline experience a decrease in lift due to
32
a decrease in eective incidence. Also, the sections below the centerline placed at a positive
distance from the CG in the C
z
direction, experience an increase in lift due to an increase in
angle of attack and those above the centerline experience a decrease in lift due to a decrease in
eective incidence. It can be shown that the eect of roll rate about the centerline of the aircraft
can be modeled with the basic loading due to this variation in spanwise eective incidence. The
change in eective incidence a panel sees due to a unit p can be modeled by:
p,j
=
2
b
(y
dy
ds
+ z
dy
ds
) (3.30)
Therefore the basic loading due to roll rate, p, is:
C
lb,p
=
N
j=1
p,j
C
lb,j
(3.31)
The net C
l
distribution, shown without roll rate eects in Eq. 3.26, can be modied to
include the added eect of roll rate as follows:
C
l
= C
L
C
la,1
+ C
lb,0
+ q(C
la,q
+ C
lb,q
) + C
lb,
+ pC
lb,p
(3.32)
This C
l
distribution can be integrated appropriately to determine the aircraft force coecients
C
L
and C
Y
l
, C
m
, and C
n
.
3.6.4 Roll Rate Example
L
=
0.5 and p= 0.05. Since this example has a nonzero C
L
, and the applied p is in the stability
frame, there will be a small yaw rate produced when a transformation is performed from the
stability coordinate frame to the body. The loading contributions here are:
2. additional rolling moment, l due to r
4. basic loading due to p
5. basic loading due to r
33
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.5
1
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
3
Additional (l due to r)
b/2 0 b/2
0.2
0
0.2
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
4
Basic (r)
Wing Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(a) Wing
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.1
0.2
b/2 0 b/2
2
0
2
x 10
4
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
3
Basic (r)
HT Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 b/2 b
0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
Basic (p)
0 b/2 b
0.03
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
Basic (r)
VT Span Location
0 b/2 b
0.035
0.03
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0.005
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(c) Vertical Tail
L
= 0.5, p
= 0.05
34
Figs. 3.4(a), 3.4(b), and 3.4(c) support the validity of this approach for modeling the
loading due to roll rate. The curves for the lift distributions from superposition and AVL are in
close agreement. The superposition values of local lift coecient for the wing are consistently
great at each spanwise lattice on the left side and greater on the right side, with maximum
discrepancies in local lift coecient of about 0.01 per unit span. The superposition solution for
the horizontal and vertical tail has greater values in magnitude at each spanwise lattice with
maximum discrepancies in local lift coecient of about 0.04 and 0.025 for the horizontal tail
and vertical tail, respectively.
The main contributions for the wing and horizontal tail are from , tail incidence, and the
basic loading due to p. The linear change in eective incidence for the surfaces due to a positive
roll rate causes an increase in lift on the right side of these surfaces and a decrease in lift on the
left side of these surfaces. This eect increases with increase in distance from the cg in the y-z
plane. Therefore the wing (Fig. 3.4(a)), with a greater span, is aected more from this motion.
When converting to the body axis, there is a small amount of yaw rate which has little eect
on the wing and horizontal tail. Interestingly, the r resulting from the transformation is a mere
0.005, which is an order of magnitude smaller than the roll rate, is equally as inuential on the
loading for the vertical tail loading. The roll rate contribution to the loading on the horizontal
tail has an interesting shape. While the linear decrease in incidence provides an increase in
lift distribution, or negative loading in the y-direction, the induced velocities from the other
surfaces cause the section lift coecients near the root chord to go negative. The positive yaw
rate left over from transformation to the body frame causes a negative loading on the vertical
tail due to an increase in tail incidence. A comparison of the force and moment coecients are
given above in Table 3.5.
Table 3.5: Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and p

C
L
0.5000 0.5000
C
X
0.0426 0.0379
C
Y
1.0e-5 -0.0047
C
Z
-0.4983 -0.4989
C
l
-0.0267 -0.0267
C
m
-0.1491 -0.1429
C
n
-0.0062 -0.0043
35
The data above compares very well aside from discrepancies in C
Y
and C
n
. While two
methods prediction for C
Y
disagree in magnitude and direction, both predict the side force to
be close to zero. The larger discrepancy lies in the prediction of yawing moment coecient. If
the conguration has a ight velocity of 60 m/s at standard sea level, then the total yawing
moment predicted by AVL for this case is close to 3000 Nm. Table 3.5 shows that AVL predicts
C
n
to be 44% less than the superposition approach, dropping the yawing moment to 2100 Nm.
Obviously, this would cause a noticeable dierence in the ight dynamics. This will be more
evident in Chapter 4.
3.6.5 Modeling Yaw Rate
While in a yawing motion, an aircraft experiences two distinct eects: (i) a change in incidence
of each section of every lifting surface and (ii) a change in the magnitude of the local velocity
at each section. The second eect is present for roll rate and pitch rate as well, but is negligible
for most aircraft.
To model the rst eect, each section of the aircrafts lifting surfaces experiences an eective
change in incidence that is proportional to the distance between its control point and the aircraft
CG, as well as the sine of its dihedral angle. For positive yaw rate, the sections forward and
right of the center of gravity having positive dihedral see an increase in lift due to an increase
in eective incidence. The sections aft of the center of gravity having positive dihedral see a
decrease in lift due to a decrease in eective incidence. It can be shown that this eect of
yaw rate about C
z
can be modeled as the sum of the basic loading due each sections eective
incidences. This change in eective incidence due to a unit r can be modeled by:
r,j
=
2
b
ref
(x
CG
x
3c/4,j
) sin
j
(3.33)
Therefore the basic loading due to a unit yaw rate, r, is:
C
lb,r
=
N
j=1
r,j
C
lb,j
(3.34)
The net C
l
distribution, shown without yaw rate rate-eects in Eq. 3.32, can be modied
to include the added eect of yaw rate as follows:
C
l
= C
L
C
la,1
+ C
lb,0
+ q(C
la,q
+ C
lb,q
) + C
lb,
+ pC
lb,p
+ rC
lb,r
(3.35)
The second eect is modeled by an increase in local velocity magnitude, and is primarily
dependent on the y-distance of the control point from the CG. For a given value of r, the local
velocity at a section is:
36
V (y) = V
r(y y
CG
) (3.36)
It turns out that modeling the eect of this spanwise change in dynamic pressure using
basic and additional loadings is quite daunting. Currently, this eect has been modeled in a
somewhat ad-hoc way of scaling the local lift coecient to take into account the local increase
in dynamic pressure. This relationship is given in Eq 3.37.
C
l
(y) = C
l
(y)(1
2 r
y
b
ref
) (3.37)
Once the lift distribution has been scaled, this distribution can be integrated appropriately to
determine the aircraft force coecients C
L
and C
Y
l
, C
m
,
and C
n
.
This method works quite well, as shown in the examples below. However, the method was
found using a combination of trial and error and experience working with modeling angular
motion on lift distributions. A thorough derivation or explanation as to why it works is not
given, but is to be addressed in future research eorts. (NOTE: Due to a lack of theoretical
foundation for modeling the change in magnitude of the local velocity at each section due to
yaw-rate, Appendix-A was added to include more examples to explore the limitations of this
method. It is also expected that the second order eects that AVL includes will cause more
noticeable discrepancies in integrated force and moment coecients)
3.6.6 Yaw Rate Example
L
=0.5
and r=0.01. Since this example has a nonzero C
L
, and r is in the stability frame, there will be
a small roll rate produced when performing transformation from the stability coordinate frame
to the body. The loading contributions here are:
37
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.5
1
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
3
Basic (r)
Wing Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.65
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(a) Wing
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.1
0.2
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
3
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
3
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0
0.1
Basic (r)
HT Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
0.22
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 b/2 b
6
4
2
0
2
x 10
3
Basic (p)
0 b/2 b
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
Basic (r)
VT Span Location
0 b/2 b
0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(c) Vertical Tail
L
= 0.5, r
= 0.10
38
From observation of the gure above, the superposed lift distribution matches the solution
obtained from AVL very well For the wing in Figure 3.5(a) the loading is due to , tail incidence,
rolling moment due to yaw rate and the roll rate produced from conversion to the body axis.
However, the basic loading due to yaw rate has little eect on the wing, which makes sense
seeing that this eect is scaled by the sine of the dihedral angle which is quite small. The
horizontal tail sees the same contributions, except the dominant loadings for the wing are the
negligible loadings for the horizontal tail. The basic loading due to yaw rate shows dominance
over the roll rate and rolling moment eects. For the vertical tail, a majority of the loading
comes from yaw rate. The eect of roll rate is dicult to distinguish for the vertical tail. A
comparison of the force and moment coecients are given above in Table 3.6.
Table 3.6: Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: and r

C
L
0.5000 0.5010
C
X
0.0451 0.0377
C
Y
0.0608 0.0614
C
Z
-0.4980 -0.4998
C
l
0.0181 0.0215
C
m
-0.1514 -0.1414
C
n
-0.0349 -0.0335
The table above shows that the formulation for modeling yaw rate provides an accurate
representation of the forces and moments attributed to this type of motion when compared to
the output of AVL. Along with C
X
, there are noticeable discrepancies between the two methods
which are due to second order eects. The calculation of rolling moment coecient sees the
largest dierence at 16%. While the pitching moment and yawing moment comparisons show a
much smaller discrepancies (7% and 4%, respectively). From this and other examples given in
Appendix A, it is clear that the lift distributions found using superposition match those from
AVL very well. However, while integrating the loading, the second order eects which AVL
takes into acount will cause apparent dierences when modeling ight dynamics.
3.6.7 Mixed Example
Lateral and directional aircraft motion will generally involve roll rate, yaw rate and sideslip
all at once since these motions are coupled. This is why an investigation into mixed examples
is noteworthy. For the rst example, the aircraft is given an to achieve a C
L
=0.5, = 5
39
and instantaneous value of p
=0.05. This particular case could occur during a Dutch roll

oscillation when the value of has peaked and r=0.
The loading contributions here are:
4. basic loading due to sideslip
40
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.5
1
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
3
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
Basic (Sideslip)
b/2 0 b/2
0.2
0
0.2
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
4
Basic (r)
Wing Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(a) Wing
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.1
0.2
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
4
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0
0.1
Basic (Sideslip)
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
5
0
5
x 10
3
Basic (r)
HT Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
0.22
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 b/2 b
0
0.2
0.4
Basic (Sideslip)
0 b/2 b
0.05
0
0.05
Basic (p)
0 b/2 b
0.01
0.02
0.03
Basic (r)
VT Span Location
0 b/2 b
0.16
0.2
0.24
0.28
0.32
0.36
0.38
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(c) Vertical Tail
L
= 0.5, = 5
, p
= 0.05
41
The gures above show that when multiple ight parameters are varying with time, in
this case , and roll-rate, the formulation still holds very well. This is a must for lateral
directional motion, since sideslip, roll rate and yaw rate all occur simultaneously. The wing
sees strong eects from rolling motion and opposing secondary eects from the dihedral eect
due to sideslip. The horizontal tails lift distribution is shaped by sideslip, roll rate, and yaw
rate eects, all causing a decrease in lift on the right side and an increase in lift on the left side.
The vertical tail sees contributions which both increase the side force, and a small basic loading
which shifts the loading towards the centerline of the aircraft. A comparison of the force and
moment coecients are given above in Table 3.7.
Table 3.7: Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: , , and p

C
L
0.5000 0.5000
C
X
0.0445 0.0442
C
Y
-0.0394 -0.0351
C
Z
-0.4981 -0.4981
C
l
0.0136 0.0142
C
m
-0.1516 -0.1425
C
n
0.0281 0.0253
The force and moment comparison above further illustrates the validity of the current
approach.
For the second example, the aircraft is given an to achieve a C
L
=0.5, and instantaneous
values of p
=-0.05 and r
=0.05. The loading contributions here are:

42
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.5
1
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
b/2 0 b/2
0.2
0
0.2
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
2
0
2
x 10
3
Basic (r)
Wing Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(a) Wing
b/2 0 b/2
0
0.1
0.2
b/2 0 b/2
2
0
2
x 10
3
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
Basic (p)
b/2 0 b/2
0.05
0
0.05
Basic (r)
HT Span Location
b/2 0 b/2
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 b/2 b
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0.01
Basic (p)
0 b/2 b
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
Basic (r)
VT Span Location
0 b/2 b
0.24
0.22
0.2
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition
AVL Solution
(c) Vertical Tail
L
= 0.5, p
= 0.05, r
= 0.05
43
The current method provides an excellent representation of the lift distributions for this
example when compared to the solution obtained from AVL, as shown in Figs. 3.7(a)- 3.7(c).
The rolling motion has a signicant eect on the wing and horizontal tail, but little eect on
the vertical tail (only causing a slight shift in the trough-like region of the distribution). For the
wing, its main contribution comes from the basic loading due to roll rate and the additional
rolling moment due to yaw rate. Since this is a negative roll rate, the left side of the wing is
heavily loaded while the right side has a large reduction in lift. This causes a restoring positive
rolling moment. For the horizontal tail, the increased loading on the right side is due to a
positive yaw rate due to an increase in the incidence along its span. Moving outboard along the
span, the right wing sees a sharp decrease due to the incidence change as a result of roll rate
being most prevalent at the tips. There is an opposite eect on the left. A noticeable reduction
in lift close to the root from yaw rate eects, and an increase in lift towards the tips due to
rolling motion are observed. A comparison of the force and moment coecients are given above
in Table 3.8.
Table 3.8: Force and Moment Coecient Comparison: , p
, and r

C
L
0.5000 0.5026
C
X
0.0434 0.0445
C
Y
0.0305 0.0351
C
Z
-0.4982 -0.5008
C
l
0.0357 0.0346
C
m
-0.1488 -0.1423
C
n
-0.0113 -0.0143
The force and moment coecients above compare well but have show noticeable disagree-
ments when predicting C
Y
and C
n
. In this example, AVL predicts more conservative values of
side force and yawing moment coecients (-13% and 21% less, respectively, than that predicted
by superpostion). As with other examples shown in this chapter containing perturbations in
and those given intial values of p and r, this case further hints that the ight dynamics will
have larger disagreements when it comes to lateral-directional motion.
However, while slight disagreements are expected, the comparisons given in this section
and the preceding sections provide optimism for the current formulations ability to predict the
loading on an aircraft due to most types of motions. However, contributions, which help model
short period oscillations, are not considered. Other eects such as sweep, taper, propulsive
44
devices, eects from the body and eects control surface deections are not considered in this
simple model.
3.7 Stability Derivatives
In the previous section, quasi-static examples were presented to illustrate the eects of in-
stantaneous loading at specied orientations and angular rates before conducting any dynamic
simulation. While the formulation for modeling these eects shows promise, it is important to
consider changes in these eects due to changes in the orientation and angular rates. Thus, a
stability derivative comparison is necessary. The lifting surface conguration was modeled in
AVL and the stability derivatives were found using small disturbance theory. For -derivatives,
is set to zero and then perturbed by an =0.01 rad. For the remaining derivatives, C
L
is
set to 0.5 and the ight parameter in question (, p, q or r) are disturbed by a value of 0.01
(unit-less for angular rates and radians for ). The following comparisons show how changing
specic parameters eects the overall loading on the aircraft. Since we know that the current
formulation is not perfect, we can use this study for further evaluation to gain insight into
which components show noticeable discrepancies.
First, changes in the loading due to change in angle of attack are considered, shown in
Table 3.9 along with their corresponding curves shown in Figs. 3.8(a)-3.8(c). Note that the
stability derivative C
Di
, is not included in Table 3.9 since we know that it is non-linear for
both models. The trends for both models predictions of C
L
and C
m
due to variations in
agree quite well. While the discrepancies are dicult to distinguish from the curves, there
is a 0.4% dierence in C
L
and a 3.0% dierence in C
m
. As expected, there is a much
more noticeable disagreement when comparing the two methods predictions for C
Di
due to
variations in . Although the two methods are in close agreement for low , after the angle
of attack is increased past 5
the superposition solution predicts higher values of induced drag

for a prescribed angle of attack. This deviation between the two methods results continues to
increase with increasing .
Table 3.9: Stability Derivative Comparison:
Derivative AVL Superposition
C
L
5.374 5.354
C
m
-3.753 -3.632
45
5 0 5 10 15 20
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
(deg)
C
L

Superposition
AVL
(a) C
L
vs.
5 0 5 10 15 20
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
(deg)
C
Di

Superposition
AVL
(b) C
Di
vs.
5 0 5 10 15 20
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
(deg)
C
m

Superposition
AVL
(c) C
m
vs.
Figure 3.8: Lift and Pitching Moment with change in Angle of Attack
46
Next, changes in loading due to variations in sideslip are given for a C
L
= 0.5 are given. The
derivatives are shown in in Table 3.10, and the relationships of side force, rolling moment,
and yawing moment due to variations in sideslip are plotted in Figures 3.9(a)-3.9(c). The
comparisons of the derivatives C
Y
and C
n
show a very accurate formulation. The comparison

of the C
l
derivative shows a distinct disagreement of 16%. However, plotting the relationship

between C
l
and is helpful because it shows how nding derivatives at certain lift coecients
can oer dierent results. Observe in Figure 3.9(b) that the AVL solution is exactly the same
as that obtained from superposition at =20
and at zero sideslip. Even though the curves

agree at these data points, there are obvious discrepencies between zero and =20
. So
while at a glance it appears the curve from AVL is linear, we now know that is not the case.
Unintuitively, this curves non-linearity turns out to be a plus since while at most lift coecients
the two methods prediction of C
l
diers, over =20
the two methods produce virtually

the same rolling moment coecient.
Table 3.10: Stability Derivative Comparison:
C
Y
-0.4535 -0.4529
C
l
-0.1221 -0.1055
C
n
0.2665 0.2642
47
20 15 10 5 0 5 10 15 20
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
(deg)
C
Y

Superposition
AVL
(a) C
Y
vs.
20 15 10 5 0 5 10 15 20
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
(deg)
C
l

Superposition
AVL
(b) C
l
vs.
20 15 10 5 0 5 10 15 20
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
(deg)
C
n

Superposition
AVL
(c) C
n
vs.
Figure 3.9: Side force, Rolling Moment, and Yawing Moment Curves with change in Sideslip
48
Now a stability derivative comparison pertaining to variations in roll rate are examined in
Table 3.11.
Table 3.11: Stability Derivative Comparison: p

C
Y p
-0.0002 -0.0952
C
l
p
-0.5427 -0.5440
C
n
p
-0.0686 -0.0306
The results reveal unsatisfactory comparisons of C
Y p
and C
n
p
, but show a good agreement for
C
l
p
. The relationships between side force, rolling moment, and yawing moment with respect
to variations in rolling moment, shown in Figures 3.10(a)-3.10(c), conrm these results.
49
50 0 50
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
p (deg/s)
C
Y

Superposition
AVL
(a) C
Y
vs. p
50 0 50
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
p (deg/s)
C
l

Superposition
AVL
(b) C
l
vs. p
50 0 50
4
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
x 10
3
p (deg/s)
C
n

Superposition
AVL
(c) C
n
vs. p
Figure 3.10: Side force, Rolling Moment, and Yawing Moment Curves with change in Roll Rate
50
The stability derivative comparison pertaining to variations in pitch rate are examined in
Table 3.12 and the relationships of lift and pitching moment with variations in pitch rate are
shown in Figs. 3.11(a)-3.11(b). From the comparisons shown, it is evident that the superposition
prediction for changes in lift due to pitch rate are in agreement with AVL.
Table 3.12: Stability Derivative Comparison: q
C
Lq
15.84 15.71
C
mq
-54.27 -53.40
51
60 40 20 0 20 40 60
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
q (deg/s)
C
L

Superposition
AVL
(a) C
L
vs. q
60 40 20 0 20 40 60
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
q (deg/s)
C
m

Superposition
AVL
(b) C
m
vs. q
Figure 3.11: Lift and Pitching Moment Curves with change in Pitch Rate
52
The stability derivative comparison pertaining to variations in yaw rate are examined in
Table 3.13 and the relationships between side force, rolling moment, and yawing moment due
to yaw rate are shown in Figs. 3.12(a)-3.12(c). It turns out that aside from the rolling moment
derivative and curve comparisons, the other yaw rate relationships are modeled quite well.
Table 3.13: Stability Derivative Comparison: r

C
Y r
0.6083 0.6140
C
l
r
0.1447 0.1789
C
n
r
-0.3651 -0.3557
53
50 0 50
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
r (deg/s)
C
Y

Superposition
AVL
(a) C
Y
vs. r
50 0 50
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
r (deg/s)
C
l

Superposition
AVL
(b) C
l
vs. r
50 0 50
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
r (deg/s)
C
n

Superposition
AVL
(c) C
n
vs. r
Figure 3.12: Side force, Rolling Moment, and Yawing Moment Curves with change in Roll Rate
54
The relationships in given in this chapter between the aerodynamic forces and moments
due to angular perturbations and rates oer further insight into the capabilities of the current
superposition approach in linear regimes. While the longitudinal derivatives may not agree per-
fectly, the relationships obtained from superposition closely match those from AVL. Therefore,
from these results it is expected that purely longitudinal ight dynamics will also match well
between the two methods. However, the models oer noticeable dierences in lateral-directional
relationships and it is expected that ight dynamics due to lateral-directional perturbations and
initial conditions will oer contrasting results.
Next, the superposition method is used in conjunction with the non-linear xed-wing EOM
to perform ight dynamic simulation of the model in a linear regime. The results are compared
with those obtained from AVL eigenmode analysis. Then a few brief examples are shown in
post-stall using the current method with the post-stall prediction code discussed in Chapter 2.
55
Chapter 4
Results for Dynamics in Pre-Stall
and Post-Stall
The previous chapter outlined the formulation for modeling the forces and moments encoun-
tered when experiencing various types of motion. This section applies those methods to model
six-DOF ight using full non-linear xed-wing EOM. The non-linear model is described in Sec-
tion 4.1. Integration of the superposed load distributions at each time step produces the total
forces, X Y and Z, and the moments L, M, and N can be used as inputs for the ODE model.
Simulations from the linearized model used in AVL are then compared with those obtained
from superposition and the non-linear model.
4.1 Fixed Wing Equations of Motion
The standard non-linear equations of 6DOF motion for a rigid-body aircraft are given in Eq. 4.1.
56
x = ucos cos
+v(sin sin cos cos sin )
+w(cos sin cos + sin sin )
y = ucos sin
+v(sin sin sin + cos cos )
+w(cos sin sin sin cos )
z = usin + v sin cos + wcos cos
u = X/mg sin qw + rv
v = Y/m + g cos sin ru + pw
w = Z/m + g cos cos pv + qu
= p + (q sin + r cos ) tan
= q cos r sin
= (q sin + r cos ) sec

p = (L qr(I
zz
I
yy
))/I
xx
q = (M rp(I
xx
I
zz
))/I
yy
r = (N pq(I
yy
I
xx
))/I
zz
(4.1)
The motion described by these equations has twelve states in the state vector:
(x y z u v w p q r)
T
. At each time step in the solution of the ODE, u, v, w, p, q,
and r are used to compute the instantaneous values of aircraft as well as the angular rates:
p, q, and r. These are used as inputs to the superposition, and eventually the post-stall code
to determine the aircraft lift distribution. This lift distribution is then used to compute the
dimensional forces and moments: X, Y , Z, L, M, and N. The ow chart for each step of the
ODE solution, corresponding to the description above, is shown in Fig 4.1.
Now the ight dynamics are compared between AVL and the superposition method.
4.2 Linear Modeling of Aircraft Modes
In this section, ight dynamic results obtained from AVL and the superposition approach, for
the conguration described in Section 3.2, are compared. Since the eigenmode feature was
implemented here, specic ight modes can be selected. Using the initial conditions obtained
57
Figure 4.1: Flow chart for pre-stall aerodynamic prediction at each time step
from AVL for specic aircraft modes, the conguration was also tested using the superposition
approach in conjunction with the ODE solver. The two methods results are compared in this
section.
4.2.1 Phugoid
Using the eigenmode analysis in AVL, the phugoid mode was selected and the ight dynamics
were simulated and stored. The model from the current eort using the non-linear EOM in
conjunction with superposition was then given the initial values specied in Table 4.1. These
parameters are what AVL uses at time t=0 for the phugoid mode.
Table 4.1: Initial Conditions for Phugoid Motion
V

deg deg deg m/s deg deg
0.000 -0.4507 0.000 60.24 3.572 0.000
In Figs. 4.2(a) - 4.2(c), the ight dynamic parameters are compared over 200 seconds.
58
0 50 100 150 200 250
60
61
62
u

(
m
/
s
)

ODE with Superposition
AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
0.1
0
0.1
v

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
3.9
3.85
3.8
3.75
w

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
(a) u, v, and w
0 50 100 150 200 250
0.1
0
0.1

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
1
0
1

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
0.1
0
0.1

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
(b) , , and
0 50 100 150 200 250
60
61
62
V

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
3.5
3.55
3.6
3.65

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
0.1
0
0.1

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
(c) V
, , and
Figure 4.2: Comparison between the superposition approach and AVL for the phugoid mode
59
Since only longitudinal inputs are given, the result is pure longitudinal motion. The velocity
u comparison between the two methods are in close agreement. Only a slight dierence in
amplitude is shown in the comparison. The lateral velocity v remains zero and curves for w are
oset due to small dierences in the trim angle of attack, but remain nearly identical in time
period and damping.
The Euler angles comparison in Fig. 4.2(b) shows that, as expected, the only non-zero Euler
angle throughout the motion is pitch angle, . Note that the accuracy of pitch is similar to
that of the forward velocity u. The last comparison plot for the phugoid motion is shown in
Fig. 4.2(c). Here the free stream velocity V
follows the same trends as the forward velocity,

u and the pitch angle , while the trends in oset of angle of attack corresponds to the w
comparison.
Note that the short period is not compared here since this motion depends highly on
contributions, which are not modeled in the current approach. However, while is an important
term when modeling the short period motion, the q derivatives also oer contributions on
vertical velocity w and consequently will result in aects in . Observing the curve with
respect to time, there is a sudden spike in angle of attack for the superposition model which
brings it closer to the its trim value.
4.2.2 Dutch Roll
When an aircraft experiences lateral motion, the damped, and oscillatory, out of phase rela-
tionship between roll rate and yaw rate resulting from lateral displacement is known as dutch
roll. The inputs for the geometrys Dutch roll mode were obtained from the initial conditions
specied in AVL, and can be seen in Table 4.2.
Table 4.2: Initial conditions for dutch roll motion
V

0.8871 0.000 13.85 62.74 3.542 -13.31
In Figures 4.3(a) - 4.3(c), the ight dynamic parameters are compared over 2 seconds.
60
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
60
61
62
63
u

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
10
0
10
20
v

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
4.5
4
3.5
w

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
(a) u, v, and w
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
10
5
0
5

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0
0.5
1
1.5

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
20
10
0
10

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
(b) , , and
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
61
62
63
V

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
3.4
3.6
3.8
4

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
10
0
10
20

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
(c) V
, , and
Figure 4.3: Comparison between the superposition approach and AVL for the Dutch Roll mode
61
An expected, a problem found when modeling pure lateral/direction inputs with the non-
linear EOM was that omitting the phugoid motion was dicult. This is expected for several
reasons. For one, the inputs used for the dutch roll mode include what avl prescribes as
the trim angle of attack, which we know does not coincide with the trim angle of attack
prescribed by the superposition approach. Thus a short period and phugoid will result. More
importantly, longitudinal and lateral-directional motion are not separated. In fact every lateral-
directional term in the non-linear equations described in Equ 4.1 include longitudinal terms.
Observe Fig 4.3(a). Releasing the geometry from what AVL prescribes as the congurations
longitudinally trimmed condition with lateral inputs results in longitudinal motion. During the
rst second, there is a noticeable short period motion in the curves describing w, , and V
.
Now observe the lateral-directional parameters, v, , , and for the desired Dutch roll motion.
Fig. 4.3(a) gives a comparison of the body axis velocities. The lateral velocity, v compares well
with that predicted by AVL. While slightly out of phase, the time periods for the two agree,
and both motions seem to be completely damped out after 1.5 seconds. Similar in comparison
to the trends in v, are the plots of and in Fig. 4.3(b). While slightly out of phase, their time
periods agree. The Euler angle, , also appears to have a bit of steady state error. The Euler
angle in this plot, and in Fig. 4.3(c) show similar trends and both return to equilibrium
close to zero.
The disagreements in Dutch Roll output dynamics were expected after the observations
from the force and moment derivative comparisons in Section 3.7 showed clear discrepancies.
However, we can attribute this to the second order terms that AVL takes into account which
we know has inuential aects.
4.2.3 Spiral Mode
A slowly convergent or divergent time variation in and is known as the spiral mode. The
inputs, taken from AVL, are given in Table 4.3. While the motion is extremely slow, taking
over 200 seconds to develop, all lateral and directional perturbations approach zero. This can
be seen in Figs. 4.4(a), 4.4(b), and 4.4(c).
Table 4.3: Initial conditions for spiral mode motion
V

-0.0191 0.000 0.1308 61.09 3.539 -0.0004
62
0 50 100 150 200 250
60.85
60.9
60.95
61
u

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
1
0.5
0
x 10
3
v

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
3.85
3.8
3.75
3.7
w

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
(a) u, v, and w
0 50 100 150 200 250
0.02
0.01
0

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
0.1
0
0.1

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
0.2
0
0.2

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
(b) , , and
0 50 100 150 200 250
61
61.05
61.1
61.15
V

(
m
/
s
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
3.5
3.55
3.6
3.65

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
0 50 100 150 200 250
1
0.5
0
x 10
3

(
d
e
g
)

AVL
(c) V
, , and
Figure 4.4: Comparison between the superposition approach and AVL for the Spiral mode
63
4.3 Post-Stall Examples
The superposition approach was implemented in a second computer program for simulating the
ight dynamics at post-stall conditions. For this program, the basic and additional loadings were
pre-computed using the Wings Weissinger-method code. The post-stall iteration algorithm,
5
written in Fortran, was integrated as a MEX function to be called by the ODE45 MATLAB
function. Results from this approach are presented for the generic general-aviation aircraft
model, described in Sec 3.2. Fig 4.5 shows a ow chart of the process completed at every time
step.
Figure 4.5: Flow chart for post-stall aerodynamic prediction at each time step
While simulation in post-stall is desired, it is not the main focus of this research. However, to
show the potential of the superposition approach for non-linear simulation, the current method
is used along with the post-stall prediction code to entertain a few brief cases in post-stall ight.
In the following subsection, the eect of aircraft stall on the motion is explored by considering
symmetric and asymmetric perturbations to the aircraft trimmed near the stall condition.
4.3.1 Post-Stall Condition
In this subsection, three examples are used to present the responses to horizontal-tail incidence
perturbation (similar to elevator-angle perturbation) for a ight velocity close to the stall con-
dition. The rst and second examples are for symmetric-ight initial conditions, and the third
is an example in which the initial condition has an asymmetry of 10-deg sideslip angle. In
the rst example, the response is studied using a linear lift curve with no stall. In the second
example, the same initial conditions are used with a non-linear lift curve with a well-dened
64
stall. The two lift curves are shown in Fig. 4.6. In these two examples, the initial conditions
are for symmetric ight even though the simulation is for 6-DOF ight. In the third example,
the asymmetric initial conditions are used with the nonlinear lift curve. The aim is to illustrate
the eect of wing stall on the motion. In the third example, the motion is simulated with an
initial asymmetry to explore if asymmetric stall is induced and whether there is a substantial
eect on the motion.
The ight-path responses for the three examples are shown in Figs. 4.7 and 4.8 for approxi-
mately 20 seconds of ight time after the start of the simulation. Comparing examples 1 and 2,
it is seen that there is greater loss in initial altitude in example 2 compared to example 1. This
is the result of wing stall. However, the ight path is along the plane of symmetry. In contrast,
the ight path for example 3 is clearly one in which signicant loss of altitude is combined with
a rapid turn. This is a result of asymmetric stall and is indicative of an incipient spin. The
spanwise C
l
distributions after 1 second of ight for the three examples are shown in Fig. 4.9.
The wing is unstalled in example 1, has symmetric stall pattern in example 2, and has a clearly
asymmetric stall pattern in example 3. The asymmetric stall behavior causes a roll and yaw to
the right, resulting in an incipient spin to the right.
0 5 10 15
0
0.5
1
1.5
(deg)
C
l
Linear lift curve
Nonlinear lift curve
Figure 4.6: Lift curves for the post-stall examples.
65
100 0 100 200
50
0
50
100
150
x (m)
z

(
m
)
1. No stall
2. Sym. stall
3. Asym. stall
Figure 4.7: View of the ight paths from the side (x vs. z).
66
0 200 400 600
100
0
100
200
300
400
x (m)
y

(
m
)
1. No stall
2. Sym. stall
3. Asym. stall
Figure 4.8: View of the ight paths from the above (x vs. y).
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
Spanwise coordinate (m)
C
l
1. No stall
2. Sym. stall
3. Asym. stall
Figure 4.9: Spanwise C
l
distributions after 1 second for the three examples.
67
Chapter 5
Conclusions
This thesis presents a novel approach to simulate aircraft dynamics. In this approach, the
aerodynamics of the conguration is computed at every time step of the ordinary dierential
equation solution. The aerodynamic analysis uses rapid superposition of pre-computed lift
distributions, enabling high computational eciency. This approach is a departure from tra-
ditional use of stability derivatives based on linearization assumptions. The current method
needs the geometry to be described in a VLM and the necessary basic and additional lift dis-
tributions stored. The results for the methodology used to model the dynamics were compared
with the AVL code using several static and dynamic examples. An key observation made was
that when comparing the two methods, while the lift distributions are in consistently close
agreement, the integration of the loadings result in noticeable discrepancies due to second order
eects not taken into account. These are most evident when dealing with lateral/directional
motion. However, even with the obvious disagreements, the results are still very comparable.
This approach of using lift superposition principles to model aerodynamic loading in ight is
used in conjunction with a recently developed post-stall aerodynamic prediction code. Thus
post-stall aerodynamics are coupled with ight dynamics in the current approach.
The results presented in this thesis illustrate the potential of the method in coupling post-
stall aerodynamic modeling with the associated ight dynamics. Real-time computations of
such interactions can enable use of this method in ight simulators for design evaluation and
training. The method, however, is still at an early stage of development. Augmentations to
handle body and propulsion eects, swept wings, and control surfaces are needed before it can
be used for high-delity simulations of full aircraft congurations. Additional validation is also
needed. Nevertheless, the method shows great potential for use in real-time ight simulations.
68
REFERENCES
[1] Etkin, B. and Reid, L. D., Dynamics of Flight: Stability and Control , John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 1996.
[2] Steven, B. L. and Lewis, F. L., Aircraft Control and Simulation, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
2003.
[3] Murch, A. M. and Foster, J. V., Recent NASA Research on Aerodynamic Modeling of
Post-Stall and Spin Dynamics of Large Transport Airplanes, AIAA Paper 2007-0463,
2007.
[4] Mukherjee, R. and Gopalarathnam, A., Poststall Prediction of Multiple-Lifting-Surface
Congurations Using a Decambering Approach, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 43, No. 3, May
June 2006, pp. 660668.
[5] Gopalarathnam, A. and Segawa, H., Use of Lift Superposition for Improved Computa-
tional Eciency of Wing Post-Stall Prediction, AIAA Paper 2008-7049, 2008.
[6] Anderson, R. F., Determination of the Characteristics of Tapered Wings, NACA Rept.
572, 1936.
[7] Abbott, I. H. and von Doenho, A. E., Theory of Wing Sections, McGraw-Hill Book
Company, 1949.
[8] Kuethe, A. M. and Chow, C.-Y., Foundations of Aerodynamics: Bases of Aerodynamic
Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1986.
[9] Tani, I., A Simple Method of Calculating the Induced Velocity of a Monoplane Wing,
Rep. No. 111 (vol. 9, 3), Aero. Res. Inst., Tokyo Imperial Univ., August 1934.
[10] Sivells, J. C. and Neely, R. H., Method for Calculating Wing Characteristics by Lifting-
Line Theory Using Nonlinear Section Lift Data, NACA TN 1269, April 1947.
[11] Schairer, R. S., Unsymmetrical Lift Distributions on a Stalled Monoplane Wing, Thesis,
California Institute of Technology, 1939.
[12] Sears, W. R., Some Recent Developments in Airfoil Theory, Journal of The Aeronautical
Sciences, Vol. 23, May 1956, pp. 490499.
[13] Piszkin, S. T. and Levinsky, E. S., Nonlinear Lifting Line Theory for Predicting Stalling
Instabilities on Wings of Moderate Aspect Ratio, Tech. rep., General Dynamics Convair
Report CASD-NSC-76-001, June 1976.
[14] Levinsky, E. S., Theory of Wing Span Loading Instabilities Near Stall, AGARD Confer-
ence Proceedings No. 204, September 1976.
[15] Anderson, J. D., Corda, S., and VanWie, D. M., Numerical Lifting Line Theory Applied
to Drooped Leading-Edge Wings Below and Above Stall, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 17,
No. 12, 1980, pp. 898904.
69
[16] McCormick, B. W., An Iterative Non-Linear Lifting Line Model for Wings with Unsym-
metrical Stall, SAE Transactions Paper No. 891020, 1989, pp. 9198.
[17] Tseng, J. B. and Lan, C. E., Calculation of Aerodynamic Characteristics of Airplane
Congurations at High Angles of Attack, NASA CR 4182, 1988.
[18] van Dam, C. P., Kam, J. C. V., and Paris, J. K., Design-Oriented High-Lift Methodology
for General Aviation and Civil Transport Aircraft, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 38, No. 6,
NovemberDecember 2001, pp. 10761084.
[19] Katz, J. and Plotkin, A., Low-Speed Aerodynamics, Cambridge Aerospace Series, Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2nd ed., 2001.
[20] Press, W. H., Teukolsky, S. A., Vetterling, W. T., and Flannery, B. P., Numerical Recipes
in Fortran The Art of Scientic Computing, Cambridge University Press, New York,
2nd ed., 1992, pp. 372375.
[21] Mukherjee, R., Gopalarathnam, A., and Kim, S., An Iterative Decambering Approach for
Post-Stall Prediction of Wing Characteristics Using Known Section Data, AIAA Paper
2003-1097, January 2003.
[22] Drela, M. and Youngren, H., AVL: Users Guide, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 33-207,
Cambridge, MA 02139, http://web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/avl.
[23] Nelson, R. C., Flight Stability and Automatic Control , McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2nd
ed., 1998.
70
APPENDIX
71
Appendix A
More Examples with Yaw Rate
Because this research uses an ad hoc approach to model the local velocity changes due to yaw
rate, this appendix is added to provide more examples for further comparison of the results
obtained from the superposition approach and those arrived at using AVL. Note that intention
here is not to provide thorough evaluations and discussions for each example, but instead for a
more broad discussion regarding the limitations of the approach.
A.1 Varying Yaw Rate at
trim
In this section, the angle of attack is held constant at its trim value of about 3.5
, and given
yaw rates of 50
/s, 100
/s, and 145
/s (resulting in r values of 0.09, 0.17, and 0.25 which fall

within the prescribed limits).
The loading comparisons between AVL and the superposition approach show that all three
examples lift distributions are in close agreement. The only detail worth noting is that the
local lift coecients on the left side of the horizontal tail see higher values in magnitude for
the superposition solution, while seeing lower values on the right hand side. The two have the
same shape but the superposed solution has shifted downward by a value of about 0.004.
The tables in the section oer better insight to problems that would arise when attempting
to simulate aerobatic maneuvers or divergent ight conditions such as a spin. It is apparent that
the reduced order drag model used in the superposition approach would cause large discrepan-
cies in longitudinal motion since the aerodynamic eciency (L/D) is a key term in Phugoid
damping. This is evident because of the large dierences in drag as yaw rate is increased
without much change in lift.
The side force comparisons appear to be in agreement for these cases. Really the only
issue aside from drag in these examples is the rolling moment comparison, which is actually
consistent with example provided in Section 3.6.
72
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition VS AVL Wing

Superposition for Wing
AVL Solution for Wing
(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition VS AVL HT

Superposition for HT
AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
alpha = 3.4976deg, r = 50.3deg/s
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n
Superposition VS AVL VT

Superposition for VT
AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
Figure A.1: Breakdown of Surface Loading:
trim
=3.5
/s, r=50
/s
73
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.85
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
0.5
0.45
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
trim
=3.5
/s, r=100
/s
74
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
1.3
1.2
1.1
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
trim
=3.5
/s, r=145
/s
75
Table A.1: C
x
Comparison for Varying r at Trim
r (
/s) AVL Superpose %di

trim 50 0.0174 0.0128 36.2
trim 100 0.0265 0.0114 132
trim 145 0.0400 0.0095 319
Table A.2: C
y
r (

trim 50 0.0515 0.0516 0.3
trim 100 0.0103 0.0103 0.0
trim 145 0.1490 0.1494 0.3
Table A.3: C
z
r (

trim 50 -0.2825 -0.2793 -1.1
trim 100 -0.2725 -0.2690 -1.3
trim 145 -0.2576 -0.2536 -1.6
76
Table A.4: C
L
r (

trim 50 -0.2825 -0.2793 -1.1
trim 100 -0.2725 -0.2690 -1.3
trim 145 -0.2576 -0.2536 -1.6
Table A.5: C
l
r (

trim 50 0.0112 0.0130 -14.2
trim 100 0.0218 0.0254 -14.1
trim 145 0.0307 0.0356 -13.9
Table A.6: C
m
r (

trim 50 0.0 0.0081 -100
trim 100 0.0 0.0185 -100
trim 145 0.0 0.0337 -100
Table A.7: C
n
r (

trim 50 0.0303 0.0298 1.7
trim 100 0.0607 0.0598 1.6
trim 145 0.0881 0.0868 1.4
77
A.2 Varying with Constant Yaw Rate
Now the yaw rate is held constant at 50
/s and the angle of attack is increased from 5
to 25
in increments of 5
(resulting in r values of 0.10, 0.15, 0.18, 0.21, and 0.24, which fall within
the prescribed limits).
The lift distribution comparisons show that the method holds very well until the angle
of attack is increased to 25
, where the predicted lift distributions show a more noticeable

deviation.
Interestingly, the C
X
comparisons improve as angle of attack is increased. The side force
coecient comparison seems to deviate in almost a linearly increasing fashion. Again, the
rolling moment coecient comparison is relatively consistent and remains within a disagreement
of fteen and twenty percent. The only large problem with these examples is the drastically
worsening trends in the yawing moment comparisons. Any case which involves an angle of
attack over fteen degrees along with a substantial yaw rate will result undesirable comparisons
between the two methods.
78
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.55
0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
Figure A.4: Breakdown of Surface Loading: =5
/s, r=50
/s
79
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
1.1
1.2
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
0.5
0.45
0.4
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
/s, r=50
/s
80
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
0.5
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
/s, r=50
/s
81
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
2.2
2.4
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
1.1
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
1
0.95
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
alpha = 20deg, r = 49.7deg/s
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
/s, r=50
/s
82
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Wing Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

(a) Wing
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
HT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for HT
(b) Horizontal Tail
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
1.1
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
VT Span Location
S
p
a
n
w
i
s
e

C
l

D
i
s
t
r
i
b
u
t
i
o
n

AVL Solution for VT
(c) Vertical Tail
/s, r=50
/s
83
Table A.8: C
x
/s
(
) r (

5 50 0.0349 0.0271 28.6
10 50 0.1338 0.1128 18.7
15 50 0.2930 0.2569 14.1
20 50 0.5077 0.4592 10.5
25 50 0.7717 0.7192 7.3
Table A.9: C
y
/s
(
) r (

5 50 0.0632 0.0636 -0.6
10 50 0.0920 0.0955 -3.8
15 50 0.1088 0.1205 -9.7
20 50 0.1152 0.1411 -18.4
25 50 0.1114 0.1582 -29.6
84
Table A.10: C
z
/s
(
) r (

5 50 -0.4239 -0.4197 -1.0
10 50 -0.8860 -0.8848 -0.1
15 50 -1.3237 -1.3428 1.4
20 50 -1.7234 -1.7887 3.7
25 50 -2.0725 -2.0725 6.5
Table A.11: C
l
/s
(
) r (

5 50 0.0170 0.0201 -15.1
10 50 0.0408 0.0490 -16.7
15 50 0.0685 0.0831 -17.6
20 50 0.0975 0.1193 -18.3
25 50 0.1258 0.1552 -19.0
Table A.12: C
m
/s
(
) r (

5 50 -0.0997 -0.0868 -14.9
10 50 -0.4317 -0.4025 -7.2
15 50 -0.7563 -0.7186 -5.2
20 50 -1.0633 -1.0349 -2.7
25 50 -1.3433 -1.3515 0.6
Table A.13: C
n
/s
(
) r (

5 50 -0.0366 -0.0355 -3.0
10 50 -0.0496 -0.0455 -9.1
15 50 -0.0532 -0.0532 -20.2
20 50 -0.0484 -0.0331 -46.3
25 50 -0.0358 -0.0125 -186
85

A Superposition Approach For Determining Lift Distributions On Maneuvering Airplanes With Applications To Post Stall (M.W. Sutton)

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A Superposition Approach For Determining Lift Distributions On Maneuvering Airplanes With Applications To Post Stall (M.W. Sutton)

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ABSTRACT

SUTTON, MATTHEW WESLEY. A Superposition Approach for Determining Lift Distributions

Free steam velocity

Free stream dynamic pressure

X Dimensionalized body axis force vector

Dimensionalized stability axis force vector

, then the magnitude of the local loading is proportional to the local

). Table 3.1 shows the limits recommended by AVL to stay within

. To nd the reference velocity, the

is the free-stream dynamic pressure or q

. Solving for the V

. In the stability axes frame, Cx is in the direction

. Depending on the dihedral () of the surface, this could be

and q =0.01. It is important that is specied in this example instead of C

Parameter AVL Superposition

Parameter AVL Superposition

=0.05. This particular case could occur during a Dutch roll

Parameter AVL Superposition

=0.05. The loading contributions here are:

Parameter AVL Superposition

the superposition solution predicts higher values of induced drag

show a very accurate formulation. The comparison

derivative shows a distinct disagreement of 16%. However, plotting the relationship

and at zero sideslip. Even though the curves

diers, over =20

the two methods produce virtually

Derivative AVL Superposition

Derivative AVL Superposition

= p + (q sin + r cos ) tan

= (q sin + r cos ) sec

follows the same trends as the forward velocity,

/s, and 145

/s (resulting in r values of 0.09, 0.17, and 0.25 which fall

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s and the angle of attack is increased from 5

, where the predicted lift distributions show a more noticeable

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

/s) AVL Superpose %di

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