Abstract

© 2018, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA. All rights reserved. In this paper, a comparative study between a NACA 0012 rectangular wing with a statically morphed Trailing Edge Flap (TEF) and the same wing with a hinged flap is performed at a Reynolds number based on the chord length of Re = 0.62×106and a Mach number of 0.115. Furthermore, an unsteady flow analysis of a dynamically morphing wing is performed, taking care to model the flap side-edge between the morphing and static parts. The deformation is parametrized in time for the morphing TEF portion and a parametrization for the transition is introduced to eliminate the flap side-edge gap and model its deformation as a seamless surface. Dynamic meshing methods were used to deform the computational grid and accurately capture the aerodynamic features of the unsteady morphing wing. The modified parametrization method was implemented successfully and an analysis of the unsteady morphing effects was carried out. The Shear Stress Transport (SST) model was utilized to model turbulence in all studied configurations whose performances were evaluated for a range of angles of attack. It was found that at low Angles of Attack the morphing TEF with the seamless transition displays an increased aerodynamic efficiency compared with the hinged flap configuration, yet the performance of the morphed TEF deteriorates at higher AoA while the hinged flap wing performs consistently. Finally, this paper introduces a framework to model accurately a 3D morphing wing with a seamless transition using an unsteady parametrization method and dynamic meshing. The unsteady analysis of the dynamically morphed wing has shown that the TEF motion induces complex flow phenomena, paving the way for in-depth high fidelity analysis using the developed framework.

Highlights

  • The aircraft industry has been under an increasing pressure to move toward greener and quieter aircraft through various frameworks such as the flightpath 2050 [1]

  • Woods et al [11] presented a design for a compliant morphing flap transition that offers a smooth transition, with an additional advantage being that the design can be integrated with the Fish Bone Active Camber (FishBAC) morphing airfoil [12]

  • The unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) was performed using the baseline mesh generated for the NACA 0012 wing at Angles of Attack (AoA)=6o, it was initialized from converged steady state simulation results, and run until both CL and CD statically converged before engaging the dynamic meshing solver and starting the wing deformation

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Summary

Introduction

The aircraft industry has been under an increasing pressure to move toward greener and quieter aircraft through various frameworks such as the flightpath 2050 [1]. The high-lift flaps of a Gulfstream III business jet were replaced by a morphing transition structure with a compliant fairing at the end of each flap to seal the gap (Fig. 1), with subsequent flight tests of this concept demonstrating that it is possible to reduce aircraft noise by as much as 30 percent [10]. This concept does not offer a smooth transition, which could still be a source of disturbance in the flow. The aerodynamic performance of the unsteady morphing TEF is investigated, and results compared with the steady state results for the statically morphed wing configuration

Problem definition
Steady RANS of a statically morphed TEF vs a hinged flap
Unsteady RANS of a dynamically morphing TEF
Computational setup
Unsteady RANS and dynamic meshing
Results and Discussion
Conclusion and Future Work
Full Text
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