Flutter behaviour of aerodynamically coupled cantilever wings

Flutter and divergence behaviour for discrete bodies in the farfield has long been considered, such as in wing-empennage interaction but not for long, slender bodies in a non-rotating frame (like that encountered in wind turbines). This work focuses on filling that knowledge gap. As such, flutter behaviour has been determined for flat plates of varying planforms in various combinations and configured either in parallel or in series. A dimensionless separation parameter based upon the chord has been selected. A closed form state-space model for the nonlinear aeroelastic response of thin cantilevered flat plates has been derived using a combination of the MSC.NASTRAN commercial structural solver and a linearised continuous time vortex lattice aerodynamic model with an image inspired cascade. The modal-based model is solved for the amplitude and period of the limit cycles of the flat plates using numerical continuation. These results are compared to experimental data obtained from identical flat plates in a wind tunnel.