Dr Alessandro Pontillo's Outputs (19)

Numerical study of noise reduction on looped propeller blades with bio-inspired tubercles (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This research investigates the effect of looped propeller blades with bio-inspired sinusoidal leading-edge tubercles. CFD simulations were conducted using ANSYS Fluent, utilising a Detached Eddy Simulation viscous model combined with a Ffowcs William... Read More about Numerical study of noise reduction on looped propeller blades with bio-inspired tubercles.

Noise-robust modal parameter identification and damage assessment for aero-structures (2024)
Journal Article

Purpose
Ground vibration testing is critical for aircraft design and certification. Fast relaxed vector fitting (FRVF) and Loewner framework (LF), recently extended to modal parameter extraction in mechanical systems to address the computational cha... Read More about Noise-robust modal parameter identification and damage assessment for aero-structures.

Experimental and numerical analysis of the bifurcation behaviour of a very flexible wing (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

High aspect ratio wings promise greater aerodynamic efficiency with subsequent savings for airlines. However, these types of designs could be prone to unstable aeroelastic responses within the standard flight envelope, which may result from the reduc... Read More about Experimental and numerical analysis of the bifurcation behaviour of a very flexible wing.

Wind tunnel investigations of a pitch-free flexible high aspect ratio aircraft model (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper presents low Reynolds number experimental wind tunnel investigations of flexible high aspect ratio aircraft models with body pitch degree-of-freedom. The aim is to assess nonlinear dynamic interactions of highly flexible wings with aircraf... Read More about Wind tunnel investigations of a pitch-free flexible high aspect ratio aircraft model.

Active stall flutter suppression for a revised Leishman-Beddoes Model (2023)
Journal Article

This paper proposes a nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO)-based sliding mode control (SMC) method to the problem of stall flutter suppression for a revised Leishman-Beddoes (L-B) model. To capture accurate aerodynamic characteristics whilst reducing... Read More about Active stall flutter suppression for a revised Leishman-Beddoes Model.

Numerical investigations of subscale flexible high aspect ratio aircraft on a dynamic wind tunnel rig (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

High aspect ratio wings have been a major topic for research due to their capability to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of modern aircraft. Many numerical studies have shown their flexibility causing nonlinearity through geometric effects and thei... Read More about Numerical investigations of subscale flexible high aspect ratio aircraft on a dynamic wind tunnel rig.

Low fidelity modelling of the nonlinear aerodynamics of spoilers (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Spoilers are secondary control surfaces mainly used for roll control, load alleviation and as airbrakes. However, when considering very flexible wings, spoilers could also play a primary role in controlling the aircraft's attitude as an ideal alterna... Read More about Low fidelity modelling of the nonlinear aerodynamics of spoilers.

Ground vibration testing of a flexible wing: A benchmark and case study (2022)
Journal Article

Beam-like flexible structures are of interest in many fields of engineering, particularly aeronautics, where wings are frequently modelled and represented as such. Experimental modal analysis is commonly used to characterise the wing’s dynamical resp... Read More about Ground vibration testing of a flexible wing: A benchmark and case study.

Low-order aeroelastic modelling of a high aspect ratio wing aircraft under constrained motion (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

The work presented in this paper describes the modelling of a low-order aeroelastic solver, built with the aim of analysing the dynamics of very flexible wing aircraft, with a focus on the coupling between the flight dynamics and the structural dynam... Read More about Low-order aeroelastic modelling of a high aspect ratio wing aircraft under constrained motion.

Experimental analysis of the dynamics of flared folding wingtips via a novel tethered flight test (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Recent developments in morphing wing technologies are routinely tested using Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAVs) due to their relatively low cost and time to manufacture. However, atmospheric flight tests limit both the repeatability of the recorded data... Read More about Experimental analysis of the dynamics of flared folding wingtips via a novel tethered flight test.

Design and assessment of subscale flexible high aspect ratio cantilever wings (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

High aspect ratio wings have been the focus of several recent studies for efficiency improvements in modern aircraft. Many numerical studies can be found in literature with some experimental validations. The work presented here describes the design,... Read More about Design and assessment of subscale flexible high aspect ratio cantilever wings.

Aeroelastic damping estimation for a flexible high-aspect-ratio wing (2021)
Journal Article

Estimation of aeroelastic damping for a very flexible high-aspect-ratio wing using wind-tunnel test data is presented in this work through the comparison of four different methods: half-power, half-quadratic gain, an adapted version of random decreme... Read More about Aeroelastic damping estimation for a flexible high-aspect-ratio wing.

A benchtop flight control demonstrator (2019)
Journal Article

A feedback control demonstrator is described. The demonstrator is intended for the demonstration of control principles applied to flight control of fixed-wing aircraft and hence is suitable for aeronautical programmes. The demonstrator consists of a... Read More about A benchtop flight control demonstrator.

Verification of a low fidelity fast simulation framework through RANS simulations (2019)
Journal Article

© 2019, The Author(s). Verification and validation of simulation models are critical steps in engineering. This paper aims at verifying the suitability of reduced order aerodynamic models used in an aeroservoelastic framework designed to analyze the... Read More about Verification of a low fidelity fast simulation framework through RANS simulations.

Investigating pitching moment stall through dynamic wind tunnel test (2019)
Journal Article

Experimental characterisation of aircraft dynamic stall can be a challenging and complex system identification activity. In this article, the authors present a method that combines dynamic wind tunnel testing with parameter estimation techniques to s... Read More about Investigating pitching moment stall through dynamic wind tunnel test.

High aspect ratio wing design using the minimum exergy destruction principle (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

High Aspect Ratio Wings (HARW) may provide the efficiency improvements required for next generation aircraft to meet the environmental and economic challenges faced by the aviation industry. In this paper, the authors describe the development of a sh... Read More about High aspect ratio wing design using the minimum exergy destruction principle.

Aeroelastic scaling for flexible high aspect ratio wings (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper provides an overview of the work conducted as part of the Cranfield BEAm Reduction and Dynamic Scaling (BeaRDS) programme, which aims to develop a methodology for designing, manufacturing and testing of a dynamically scaled High Aspect Rat... Read More about Aeroelastic scaling for flexible high aspect ratio wings.

Parameters estimation methodology for the nonlinear rolling motion of finned cylindrical body (2018)
Journal Article

Identification of nonlinear roll dynamics of finned cylindrical bodies is a critical step when assessing free motion stability and trajectories of aerially dispensed munitions or decoys. In this paper the authors present a parameter estimation proces... Read More about Parameters estimation methodology for the nonlinear rolling motion of finned cylindrical body.

Flight dynamic modelling and simulation of large flexible aircraft (2018)
Book Chapter

The drive for aircraft efficiency and minimum environmental impact is requiring the aerospace industry to generate technologically innovative and highly integrated aircraft concepts. This has changed the approach towards conceptual design and highlig... Read More about Flight dynamic modelling and simulation of large flexible aircraft.