Generalized flutter reliability analysis with adjoint and direct approaches for aeroelastic eigen-pair derivatives computation

The article presents physics based time invariant generalized flutter reliability approach for a wing in detail. For carrying flutter reliability analysis, a generalized first order reliability method (FORM) and a generalized second order reliability method (SORM) algorithms are developed. The FORM algorithm requires first derivative and the SORM algorithm requires both the first and second derivatives of a limit state function; and for these derivatives, an adjoint and a direct approaches for computing eigen-pair derivatives are proposed by ensuring uniqueness in eigenvector and its derivative. The stability parameter, damping ratio (real part of an eigenvalue), is considered as implicit type limit state function. To show occurrence of the flutter phenomenon, the limit state function is defined in conditional sense by imposing a condition on flow velocity. The aerodynamic parameter: slope of the lift coefficient curve (\(C_{L}\)) and structural parameters: bending rigidity (EI) and torsional rigidity (GJ) of an aeroelastic system are considered as independent Gaussian random variables, and also the structural parameters are modeled as second-order constant mean stationary Gaussian random fields having exponential type covariance structures. To represent the random fields in finite dimensions, the fields are discretized using Karhunen–Loeve expansion. The analysis shows that the derivatives of an eigenvalue obtained from both the adjoint and direct approaches are the same. So the cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of flutter velocity will be the same, irrespective of the approach chosen, and it is also reflected in CDFs obtained using various reliability methods based on adjoint and direct approaches: first order second moment method, generalized FORM, and generalized SORM.