A new method of smart and optimal flutter control for composite laminated panels in supersonic airflow under thermal effects

In most of the active flutter controls, the feedback control gains are selected arbitrarily or by trial and error. These methods are inaccurate and time-consuming. In the present study, a smart and optimal method is proposed to investigate the thermal flutter control of composite laminated panels in supersonic airflow based on a genetic algorithm (GA), in which the feedback control gains of all the piezoelectric actuators are represented by the chromosomes and the fitness is set to be the difference between the present flutter bound and the expected one. Then, according to the GA process, a set of optimal feedback control gains can be obtained, and the flutter bounds of the structural system can be suppressed to any expected values by means of the optimal control gains. Furthermore, the maximum flutter bound of the panel and the corresponding feedback control gains can also be obtained. In the investigations, the aerodynamic pressure is evaluated by the supersonic piston theory and the controller is designed by the displacement feedback method. The influences of the placements of piezoelectric patches on the active flutter control effects are analyzed. Some interesting phenomena are obtained and discussed.