The flutter, post-flutter and active control of a two-dimensional airfoil with control surface operating in supersonic/hypersonic flight speed regions are investigated in this paper. A three-degree-of-freedom dynamic model is established, in which both the cubic nonlinear structural stiffness and the nonlinear aerodynamic load are accounted for. The third order Piston Theory is employed to derive the aerodynamic loads in the supersonic/hypersonic airflow. Nonlinear flutter happens with a phenomenon of limit cycle oscillations (LCOs) when the flight speed is less than or greater than linear critical speed. The LQR approach is employed to design a control law to increase both the linear and nonlinear critical speeds of aerodynamic flutter, and then a combined control law is proposed in order to reduce the amplitude of LCOs by adding a cubic nonlinear feedback control. The dynamic responses of the controlled system are given and used to compare with those of the uncontrolled system. Results of simulation show that the active flutter control method proposed here is effective.
