Methods for Predicting Transonic Flutter Using Simple Data Models

Aircraft moving at transonic speeds (i.e., ~0.7 to 0.85 Mach - or near the speed of sound) experience transonic wing flutter. Engineers have traditionally relied on experimental or computational methods to understand wing flutter for the design process. Modeling wing flutter using the customary computational methods requires tens of hours of simulations on a supercomputer that is costly to buy or rent. Having a method to model wing flutter aerodynamics without requiring supercomputer use would (a) increase the efficiency and decrease the cost of aircraft wing design and (b) enable real-time wing-flutter modeling to aid in-flight aircraft operation and control.