Vibration characteristics and flutter analysis of a composite laminated plate with a store

The effects of an external store on the flutter characteristics of a composite laminated plate in a supersonic flow are investigated. The Dirac function is used to formulate the interaction between the plate and the store. The first-order piston theory is used to describe the aerodynamic load. The governing equation of the composite laminated plate with an external store is established based on the Hamilton principle. The mode shapes are constructed by the admissible functions which axe a set of characteristic orthogonal polynomials generated directly by the Gram-Schmidt process, and the boundary constraint is modeled as the artificial springs. The frequency and mode shapes of the plate under different boundaries are determined by the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The validity of the proposed approach is confirmed by comparing the results with those obtained from the finite element method （FEM）. The effects of the mounting position, the center of gravity position and the mounting points spacing of the external store on the flutter boundary are discussed for both the simply supported and cantilever plates, respectively, which correspond to the two installation sites of the external store, i.e., the belly and wings of the aircraft.