Aeroelastic characteristics of magneto-rheological fluid sandwich beams in supersonic airflow

Supersonic aeroelastic instability of a three-layered sandwich beam of rectangular cross section with an adaptive magneto-rheological fluid (MRF) core layer is investigated. The panel is excited by an airflow along it's longitudinal direction. The problem formulation is based on classical beam theory for the face layers, magnetic field dependent complex modulus approach for viscoelastic material model and the linear first-order piston theory for aerodynamic pressure. The classical Hamilton's principle and the assumed mode method are used to set up the equations of motion. The validity of the derived formulation is confirmed through comparison with the available results in the literature. The effects of applied magnetic field, core layer thickness and constraining layer thickness on the critical aerodynamic pressure are studied. The onset of instability in terms of the critical value of the nondimensional aerodynamic pressure for the sandwich beam is calculated using the p-method scheme. Simply supported, clamped-clamped and clamped-free boundary conditions are considered. The results show that the magnetic field intensity and thickness ratios have significant effects on the instability bounds.