Automated tuning of airframe vibration by structural optimization

Numerical optimization techniques are used to modify the dynamic response at a specified point(s) of a helicopter airframe structure due to a steady state narrow band excitation. Calculation of steady state vibration amplitude is reduced to the solution of linear equations with complex coefficients. The sensitivity of the dynamic amplitudes with respect to the structural parameter perturbations can be computed with the same technique as the one used in the static displacement sensitivity without requiring eigenvector sensitivity. Approximate models for critical structural responses are created based on the sensitivity data to reduce the amount of computational effort and to enable the design of structures of practical scale and complexity. This approach is general in that it accommodates static, dynamic, and frequency constraints simultaneously as long as their computational models are available. It can be used in optimizing mass distribution as well as stiffness modifications of practical structures.