Chapter 5

Wing Rock

Yalew Mekonnen Fenta

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5.1. Wing Rock Onset And Its Prediction

The wing rock is an oscillation, predominantly in the lateral-directional variables, induced

when the Dutch roll mode loses stability.

The onset of wing rock corresponds to the occurrence of a Hopf bifurcation. Wing rock is a
fairly commonly observed phenomenon on military airplanes, hence identifying the
occurrence of wing rock is a matter of considerable interest.

 However, of equal or greater interest is the prediction of the possibility of wing rock during
the aircraft design process and ways to avoid the occurrence of wing rock.

 Therefore, the development of a relatively simple criterion for wing rock onset is a
significant issue.

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 The onset of wing rock is related with a nonlinear variation of roll damping derivative
with α, sideslip angle β, oscillation frequency and amplitude [1].
 Wing rock is primarily observed by means of wind tunnel free-to-roll experiments for very
slender delta wings.

Fig. 5.2: Wing rock build-up of an 800 delta wing at a = 270

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Fig. 5.1: Separated vortex fows and some undesirable airplane rotary motions
 Fig. 5.2: Emergence of stable limit cycle family at a supercritical Hopf bifurcation.

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 The onset of wing rock is related with a nonlinear variation of roll damping derivative
with α, sideslip angle β, oscillation frequency and amplitude [1].
 Wing rock is primarily observed by means of wind tunnel free-to-roll experiments for very
slender delta wings.

Fig. 5.3: Wing rock build-up of an 800 delta wing at a = 270

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 Let us consider the F-18 low-AOA model for this exercise.

 We shall carry out an Extended Bifurcation Analysis (EBA) computation with a level flight
constraint (zero sideslip, wings level, zero flight path angle).

3.1

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 Fig. 5.4: F-18/HARV longitudinal aerodynamic and control derivatives from Table 2.3
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 The resulting bifurcation diagram is shown in Fig. 5.5. The top plot shows the required
variation of the throttle to maintain level flight as a function of the trim Mach number. The
various points of instability are marked therein.

 For instance, the point marked “A” refers to the onset of spiral instability at a low AOA.
Points “B” and “C” mark the phugoid instability onset and recovery of stability,
respectively, at moderate values of AOA.

 Finally, the Hopf bifurcation at the point labeled “D” indicates the onset of Dutch roll
instability—that is, wing rock.

 This can be verified by referring to the bottom plot in Fig. 5.1, which shows the movement
of the various modal eigenvalues in the complex plane corresponding to the bifurcation
diagram.
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 Fig. 5.5: Bifurcation diagram for the low-angle-of-attack F-18 airplane model and onset of various
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instabilities.
 Moving from lower (−0.05 rad) to higher (0.42 rad) AOA,

 The spiral mode starts off marginally unstable, then moves into the left-half plane where
it encounters the roll mode eigenvalue; they collide and separate into a complex
conjugate pair signifying a lateral phugoid mode.
 The short period mode tends toward the imaginary axis, but remains stable all through.
The phugoid mode is initially marginally stable. The eigenvalue pair briefly flit across the
imaginary axis but then regain stability.
 The Dutch roll eigenvalue crosses the imaginary axis at an AOA of about 22 deg, following
which the Dutch roll mode becomes unstable.

 Thus, the onset of wing rock oscillations may be expected around 22 deg AOA for this airplane
model.
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5.2. Analytical Criterion for Wing Rock Onset
 Under the usual assumptions of small perturbations in the lateral-directional variables alone, about
a straight and level flight trim state, the lateral- directional equations of motion may be written as

(5.1)

(5.2)

(5.3)
 where pb, rb are the body-axis roll and yaw rates, respectively, μ is the wind axis (velocity vector) roll

angle, χ is the wind-axis yaw angle, q is the dynamic pressure (= 1/2ρV2), S is a reference area,
usually the airplane wing planform area b is the wing span, g is the acceleration due to gravity, W is
the airplane weight, Ixx, Izz are the moments of inertia, and V* is the trim velocity.

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 The first step is to derive the aircraft equations of motion under the following considerations:

 The aircraft is a rigid body.

 The aircraft has constant mass and mass properties.

 The x-z plane is a plane of symmetry.

 No small incidence angles assumption, all the angles are kept by their values.

 The three velocity components in the body axes frame of reference (u, v, and w) are written in
terms of the aircraft true velocity (V), and the incidence angles (α and ß).

u = V cosα cosß

v = V sinß

w= V sinɑ cosß
 The first eight equations are independent on the angle of azimuth (Y), so the Y-equation is discarded
from the set of equations, leaving an autonomous system of eight first-order ordinary differential
equations
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 Insert the aerodynamic model of Equations in the lateral-directional Equations 5.1 to 5.3 to
give the complete set of equations as below:

(5.4)

(5.5)

(5.6)

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 The rate derivatives of the side force coef_x0002_ficient, CYp1, CYp2, CYr1, CYr2, are usually of

lesser importance and may be ignored.

 Then, Equation 5.4 reduces to

(5.7)

 The perturbed wind-axis Euler angle rates can be related to the body-axis angular rates as
follows:
(5.8)

 Differentiating the first of Equation 5.8 once with respect to time:

(5.9)

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 Using ∆ from Equation 5.7, we can complete Equation 5.9 as below

(5.10)

 which on collecting like terms, appears as

(5.11)

 Similarly, differentiating the second of Equation 5.8 yields

(5.12)

 The primed short symbols in Equation 5.13 are defined as below: (5.13)
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 Again replacing for ∆ and its derivative from Equation 5.7, and collecting like terms in
Equation 5.12 gives the following equation for yaw:

(5.14)

 Equations 5.11 and 5.14 form the set of two second-order lateral-directional small-
perturbation equations.

 It can be verified that these two equations of second order in the variables Δμ and Δβ are
coupled because of the ∆, Δβ terms in the Δμ (rolling moment) equation, and the ∆, Δμ
terms in the Δβ (yawing moment) equation.
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 5.2

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Matrix Form of the Perturbed Lateral-Directional Equations
 For further analysis, Equations 5.11 and 5.14 need to be cast in matrix form, as below:

(5.15)

 which can be briefly represented by the following matrix equation:

(5.16)
 where

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 and Clat, Klat are the damping and stiffness matrix, respectively.

 The criterion for static instability is given by det(Klat) = 0, which is equiv_x0002_alent to

the Routh criterion requiring the constant term in the charac_x0002_teristic polynomial
to be zero.

 This condition, labeled Slat, can be easily evaluated from Equation 5.15 to be

(5.17)

 The static instability criterion usually correlates with the onset of spi_x0002_ral mode
instability; that is the spiral eigenvalue being at the origin on the complex plane.

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 5.3. Approximation by Hamiltonian Dynamical System

 Typically, at moderate values of AOA (α*), the eigenvalues of the lateral_x0002_directional

model in Equation 5.13 turn out to be a complex pair of lightly damped poles representing
the Dutch roll mode and a second complex pair of low-damped poles, called the lateral
phugoid, formed by the merger of the roll (rate) and spiral eigenvalues.

 This is as seen in Figure 5.5. Thus, the lateral-directional dynamics as a whole is poorly
damped around the point of onset of the dynamic instability.

 Therefore, one may justifiably approximate the lateral-directional dynamics as an undamped

system.

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 In the traditional way of presenting the lateral_x0002_directional dynamic equations, it is
quite impossible to identify which terms represent the “damping” and to isolate them in
order to arrive at an undamped approximation.

 However, by transforming the lateral_x0002_directional dynamics into second-order

equations and presenting them in a matrix form as in Equation 5.15, the damping terms are
clearly sepa_x0002_rated. By setting the supposedly negligible Clat matrix to zero, one can
obtain an undamped approximation to the lateral-directional dynamics as follows:

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 (5.18)

 which is equivalently represented by

(5.19)

 Equation 5.19 is in the form of a Hamiltonian system.

 The onset of dynamic instability in the damped lateral-directional dynamics Equation 5.12
can then be approximated by the dynamic instability of the undamped (Hamiltonian) system
in Equation 5.18.

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 The eigenvalues of a Hamiltonian system are constrained to be sym_x0002_metric about the
origin in the complex plane.

 This means that only four possible arrangements of eigenvalues can occur:

1. Two pairs of complex conjugate eigenvalues on the imaginary axis; ±iω1, ±iω2

2. Two pairs of real eigenvalues; ±σ1, ±σ2

3. One pair of complex conjugate eigenvalues on the imaginary axis, another pair of real
eigenvalues; ±iω, ±σ

4. Two pairs of complex conjugate eigenvalues; ±(σ ± iω), σ ≠0

 Only the first option indicates stable behavior; the other three represent various forms of
instability.

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