Use of linear and nonlinear vibration absorbers for buffet alleviation of twin-tailed fighter aircraft

We investigate theoretically and experimentally the performance of linear and nonlinear vibration absorbers to suppress high-amplitude vibrations of twin-tailed fighter aircraft when subjected to a primary resonance excitation. The tail section used in the experiments is a 1/16 dynamically scaled model fo the F-15 tail assembly. Both techniques (linear and nonlinear) are based on introducing an absorber and coupling it with the tails through a sensor and an actuator, where the control signals ae either linear or quadratic. For both cases, we develop the equations governing the response of the closed-loop system and use the method of multiple scales to obtain an approximate solution. We investigated both control strategies by studying their steady-state characteristics. In addition, we compare the power requirements of both techniques and show that the linear tuned vibration absorber uses less power than the nonlinear absorber.