The study of rudder effectiveness and control surface reversal of an aircraft having twin vertical tail

2023-8-25
Yurtsever, Ayberk
Aircraft are inherently flexible, and flexibility is an advantage as a design feature for improved flight performance. Therefore, with the increase in flexibility, the increase in performance should be carefully examined, and flexibility should be controllable. The problem attempted in this study is alleviating the minimization of the yaw effectiveness in designing aircraft with twin vertical tails. The thesis study focuses on creating a reduced-order finite element model for an aircraft with twin vertical tails and proposing design changes based on effectiveness values to address the identified problem. The static aeroelasticity analysis was performed using the MSC.Nastran™ package program as a solver while automating the creation of models with different design parameters using the code indigenously written in Python. The effect of these design modifications is then evaluated within the assumed aircraft flight envelope to show the sensitivity of vertical tail and rudder design parameters that affect rudder yaw effectiveness. Various design changes were proposed to keep the rudders controllable and avoid control surface reversal.
Citation Formats
A. Yurtsever, “The study of rudder effectiveness and control surface reversal of an aircraft having twin vertical tail,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2023.