Nonlinear metamaterial enabled aeroelastic vibration reduction of a supersonic cantilever wing plate

Abstract The violent vibration of supersonic wings threatens aircraft safety. This paper proposes the strongly nonlinear acoustic metamaterial (NAM) method to mitigate aeroelastic vibration in supersonic wing plates. We employ the cantilever plate to simulate the practical behavior of a wing. An aeroelastic vibration model of the NAM cantilever plate is established based on the mode superposition method and a modified third-order piston theory. The aerodynamic properties are systematically studied using both the timedomain integration and frequency-domain harmonic balance methods. While presenting the flutter and post-flutter behaviors of the NAM wing, we emphasize more on the pre-flutter broadband vibration that is prevalent in aircraft. The results show that the NAM method can reduce the low-frequency and broadband pre-flutter steady vibration by 50%–90%, while the post-flutter vibration is reduced by over 95%, and the critical flutter velocity is also slightly delayed. As clarified, the significant reduction arises from the bandgap, chaotic band, and nonlinear resonances of the NAM plate. The reduction effect is robust across a broad range of parameters, with optimal performance achieved with only 10% attached mass. This work offers a novel approach for reducing aeroelastic vibration in aircraft, and it expands the study of nonlinear acoustic/elastic metamaterials.