A bifurcation analysis of a two-dimensional airfoil with a structural nonlinearity in the pitch direction and subject to incompressible flow is presented. The nonlinearity is an analytical third-order rational curve fitted to a structural freeplay. The aeroelastic equations-of-motion are reformulated into a system of eight first-order ordinary differential equations. An eigenvalue analysis of the linearized equations is used to give the linear flutter speed The nonlinear equations of motion are either integrated numerically using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method or analyzed using the AUTO software package. Fixed points of the system are found analytically and regions of limit cycle oscillations are detected for velocities well below the divergent flutter boundary. Bifurcation diagrams showing both stable and unstable periodic solutions are calculated, and the types of bifurcations are assessed by evaluating the Floquet multipliers. In cases where the structural preload is small, regions of chaotic motion are obtained, as demonstrated by bifurcation diagrams, power spectral densities, phase-plane plots and Poincare sections of the airfoil motion; the existence of chaos is also confirmed via calculation of the Lyapunov exponents. The general behaviour of the system is explained by the effectiveness of the freeplay part of the nonlinearity in a complete cycle of oscillation. Results obtained using this reformulated set of equations and the analytical nonlinearity are in good agreement with previously obtained finite difference results for a freeplay nonlinearity.
