A bio-inspired, active morphing skin for camber morphing structures

Abstract

In this study, one kind of developed morphing skin embedded with pneumatic muscle fibers (PMFs) was manufactured and was employed for camber morphing structures. The output force and contraction of PMF as well as the morphing skin were experimentally characterized at a series of discrete actuator pressures varying from 0.15 to 0.35 MPa. The active morphing skin test results show that the output force is 73.59 N and the contraction is 0.097 (9.7%) at 0.35 MPa. Due to these properties, this active morphing skin could be easily used for the morphing structures. Then the proper airfoil profile was chosen to manufacture the adaptive airfoil in this study. The chord-wise bending airfoil structure was achieved by employing this kind of active morphing skin. Finally the deformed shapes of this chord-wise bending airfoil structure were obtained by 3-dimensions scanning measurement. Meanwhile the camber morphing structures were analyzed through the finite element method (FEM) and the deformed shapes of the upper surface skins were obtained. The experimental result and FEM analysis result of deformed shapes of the upper surface skins were compared in this paper.