Panel Flutter
Panel flutter or the flutter of plates and shells differs in some important respects from the classical flutter of airfoils and wings. These include (i) streamwise bending deformations which are more important than spanwise deformations, (ii) the effects of nonlinear structural forces which typically become significant when the plate deformations are on the order of the plate thickness, and (iii) the impact of viscous boundary layer effects in the transonic flow regime. It is also sometimes said that panel flutter only occurs at supersonic Mach numbers. And that is true if the leading and trailing edges of the panel are fixed, but not if the trailing edge is free. In the latter case the phenomenon is more analogous to the flutter of a flag and can occur in all speed regimes including subsonic flow. This recent work on transonic and subsonic panel flutter is considered here as well. In the present chapter, the essential elements of panel flutter are described, the essence of the extant mathematical models reviewed and representative comparisons between theory and experiment cited.
