1 Structural Models for Flight Dynamic Analysis of Very Flexible Aircraft

Dissimilar analysis models are considered for the large structural deformations of aircraft with high-aspect-ratio composite wings. The different approaches include displacement-based, strain-based, and intrinsic geometrically-nonlinear beam models. Comparisons are made in terms of numerical efficiency and simplicity for integration of full aircraft flexibility in flight dynamics models. An analysis procedure is proposed based on model substructuring with a (linear) modal representation of both fuselage and tail and (nonlinear) intrinsic beam elements for the flexible wings. I