Model-based, data-driven and physics-based approaches represent the state-of-the-art techniques to estimate the aircraft flow angles, angle-of-attack and angle-of-sideslip, in avionics. Thanks to sensor fusion techniques, a synthetic sensor is able to provide estimation of flow angles without any dedicated physical sensors. The work deals with a physics-based scheme derived from flight mechanic theory that leads to a nonlinear flow angle model. Even though several solvers can be adopted, nonlinear models can be replaced with less accurate but straightforward ones in practical applications. The present work proposes a linearisation to obtain the flow angles' closed form solution that is verified using a flight simulator. The main objective of the paper, in fact, is to analyse the estimation degradation using the proposed closed form solutions with respect to the nonlinear scheme. Moreover, flight conditions, where the proposed closed form solutions are not applicable, are identified.

Ensuring flight safety for passengers as well as crew is the most important aspect of modern aviation, and in order to achieve this, it is necessary to be able to forecast the durability of individual components. The present contribution illustrates the results of a computational analysis to determine the possibility of analysing the prediction of bearing durability in on-board rotating equipment from the point of view of thermal fatigue.In this study, a method developed at the Air Force Institute of Technology was used for analysis, which allowed to determine the bearing durability from the flight altitude profile. Two aircraft have been chosen for analysis - a military M-28 and a civilian Embraer. As a result of the analysis were obtained: the bearing durability in on-board rotating devices, average operation time between failures, as well as failure rate. In conclusion, the practical applicability of this approach is demonstrated by the fact that even with a limited number of flight parameters, it is possible to estimate bearing durability and increase flight safety by regular inspections.

The paper discusses the effect of the winglets on the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance of Boeing 737-800 aircraft by numerical approach. For this purpose, computational fluid dynamics and fluent commercial software are used to solve the compressible flow governing equations. The RANS method and the K-ω SST turbulence model are selected to simulate the subsonic flow around the wing with acceptable accuracy and low computational cost. The main variables of steady flow around the simple and blended wing in constant atmospheric conditions are computed by numerical solution of governing equations. The solution of the acoustic field has also been accomplished by the broad-band acoustic source model. The results reveal that adding a blended winglet increases the pressure difference near the wingtip,which increases the lift force. Also, the blended winglet reduces the power and magnitude of vorticities around the wingtip, which reduces the wing's drag force. The effects of winglets on aerodynamic forces lead to a 3.8% increase in flight range and a 3.6% increase in the maximum payload of the aircraft. Also, the acoustic power level variables on the surfaces and fields around the wing have been investigated integrally and locally.

Airframe internal and external specifications are the product of intensive intellectual efforts and technological breakthroughs distinguishing each aircraft manufacturer. Therefore, geometrical information characterizing aircraft primary aerodynamic surfaces remain classified. When attempting to model real aircraft, many members of the aeronautical community depend on their personal expertise and generic design principles to bypass the confidentiality obstacles and sketch real aircraft airfoils, which therefore vary for the same aircraft due to the different designers' initial assumptions. This paper presents a photogrammetric shape prediction method for deriving geometrical properties of real aircraft airframe by utilizing their publicly accessible static and dynamic visual content. The method is based on extracting the visually distinguishable curves at the fairing regions between aerodynamic surfaces and fuselage. Two case studies on B-29 and B-737 are presented showing how to approximate the sectional coordinates of their wing inboard airfoils and proving the good agreement between the geometrical and aerodynamic properties of the replicated airfoils to their original versions. Therefore, the paper provides a systematic reverse engineering approach that will enhance aircraft conceptual design and flight performance optimization studies.

The analysis of nonlinear vibrations, buckling, post-buckling, flutter boundary determination and post-flutter behavior of a homogeneous curved plate assuming cylindrical bending is conducted in this article. Other assumptions include simply-supported boundary conditions, supersonic aerodynamic flow at the top of the plate, constant pressure conditions below the plate, non-viscous flow model (using first- and third-order piston theory), nonlinear structural model with large deformations, and application of mechanical and thermal loads on the curved plate. The analysis is performed with constant environmental indicators (flow density, heat, Reynolds number and Mach number). The material properties (i.e., coefficient of thermal expansion and modulus of elasticity) are temperature-dependent. The equations are derived using the principle of virtual displacement. Furthermore, based on the definitions of virtual work, the potential and kinetic energy of the final relations in the integral form, and the governing nonlinear differential equations are obtained after fractional integration. This problem is solved using two approaches. The frequency analysis and flutter are studied in the first approach by transferring the handle of ordinary differential equations to the state space, calculating the system Jacobin matrix and analyzing the eigenvalue to determine the instability conditions. The second approach discusses the nonlinear frequency analysis and nonlinear flutter using the semi-analytical solution of governing differential equations based on the weighted residual method. The partial differential equations are converted to ordinary differential equations, after which they are solved based on the Runge-Kutta fourth- and fifth-order methods. The comparison between the results of frequency and flutter analysis of curved plate is linearly and nonlinearly performed for the first time. The results show that the plate curvature has a profound impact on the instability boundary of the plate under supersonic aerodynamic loading. The flutter boundary decreases with growing thermal load and increases with growing curvature.