Panel flutter prediction in two dimensional flow with enhanced piston theory

Piston theory may be used in the high Mach number supersonic flow region and/or in very high frequency subsonic or supersonic flow. In this flow model, the pressure at a point on the fluid-solid interface only depends on the downwash at the same point. However the classical piston theory may not be sufficient for some phenomena in aeroelasticity and aeroacoustics (far field prediction). Dowell and Bliss have created an extension of piston theory that allows for higher order effects that take into account the effect the distribution of downwash on pressure at any point. For simple harmonic motion, expansions in reduced frequency, inverse reduced frequency and/or inverse (square of) Mach number have all been created; The effects of higher order terms in these several expansion in creating an enhanced piston theory was illustrated for plunge and pitch motion of an airfoil (discrete system) by Ganji and Dowell. In the present paper, flutter prediction for a flexible panel in two –dimensional flow is investigated using enhanced piston theory. The goal of the present paper is to demonstrate that an enhance version of piston theory can analyze single degree of freedom flutter of a panel as compared to the classical piston theory and quasi-steady aerodynamic models which can only treat coupled mode flutter.