Influence of boundary conditions relaxation on panel flutter with compressive in-plane loads

The influence of boundary conditions relaxation on two-dimensional panel flutter is studied in the presence of in-plane loading. The boundary value problem of the panel involves time-dependent boundary conditions that are converted into autonomous form using a special coordinate transformation. Galerkin's method is used to discretize the panel partial differential equation of motion into six nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The influence of boundary conditions relaxation on the panel modal frequencies and LCO amplitudes in the time and frequency domains is examined using the windowed short time Fourier transform and wavelet transform. The relaxation and system nonlinearity are found to have opposite effects on the time evolution of the panel frequency. Depending on the system damping and dynamic pressure, the panel frequency can increase or decrease with time as the boundary conditions approach the state of simple supports. Bifurcation diagrams are generated by taking the relaxation parameter, dynamic pressure, and in-plane load as control parameters. The corresponding largest Lyapunov exponent is also determined. They reveal complex dynamic characteristics of the panel, including regions of periodic, quasi-periodic, and chaotic motions. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.