Thermo-mechanical Characteristics and Improvement of Antenna Structures in Supersonic Flows

Abstract

In a supersonic airflow, smart skin antenna structure is analyzed to investigate the thermo-mechanical characteristics and stability boundaries. The skin is modeled as a multi-layer sandwich structure with a dielectric polymer. Especially, the layer is embedded on the middle surface of the face sheets similar to the honeycomb core to perform the role of antenna or radar structures. First-order shear deformation theory of plate and von Karman strain-displacement relations are adopted in this work. Also, aerodynamic pressure is based on the first-order piston theory for the aerodynamic loads. Newton-Raphson iterative method is applied to solve the nonlinear equations of motion. Special thermo-mechanical characteristics and improvement of the structural model are discussed.