THE INFLUENCE OF AERO-VISCOELASTIC LIFTING SURFACE CHORD-WISE AND UNSYMMETRICAL BENDING AND TWISTING ON TORSIONAL DIVERGENCE AND FLUTTER 1

An analysis is presented for the combined inuence of un- symmetric bending, chordwise bending and torsion of a viscoelastic lifting surface. The eects on creep torsional divergence and utter are inves- tigated. The results are applicable to highly exible surfaces, such as supersonic sharp edged leading edge wings and light-weight congura- tions found in UAVs and MAVs. Illustrative examples are presented with an evalution of their results, but since the eigenvalue solutions are inher- ently numerical it is not possible to draw general conclusions.