Thin plate fluttering by thermally induced buoyancy effects

The canonical problem of flow-induced flutter of a thin flexible plate is revisited, with an emphasis on the thermally induced buoyancy effects on the dynamics and thermal characterization of the system. An immersed boundary method is used to simulate mixed convection of a heated 2D inextensible and flexible thin plate. The bending stiffness, Richardson number, and Reynolds number are chosen asthe characteristic parameters of the system. The dynamic and thermal responses of the plate are examinedover a wide range of the characteristic parameters, and it is shownthat the stability boundary growth rate of the flapping dynamics dramatically increases after a particular threshold Richardson number due to the mode switching behavior. The appearance of higher oscillatory modes and a shift in the nodes of the dominant oscillatory mode are found to also be correlated to the observed higher Nusselt numbers.