Nonlinear Aeroelastic Analysis of Composite Morphing Wing with Corrugated Structures

Abstract

A new nonlinear aeroelastic framework enabling to study the nonlinear aeroelasticity of corrugated/composite morphing wing with orthotropic materials has been developed in this paper. A shell finite element allowing to model flat wings has been adapted to model composite and corrugated panels, which enables to investigate influences of composite configurations. A corotational approach is implemented to consider the effect of geometrical nonlinearity resulted from large deformation corresponding to wing morphing. A cost effective unsteady vortex-lattice method is coupled with the structural model to consider the aerodynamics under the large deformations. A homogenization method of corrugated panel is also implemented to model corrugated panels as equivalent orthotropic plates. Verifications of individual structural, aerodynamic, and corrugated panel models are performed. The nonlinear aeroelastic analysis framework at steady-state condition is also verified by comparing with the linear aeroelastic solution and the nonlinear aeroelastic solution with the finite beam element formulation. This work demonstrates the feasibility of the methodology to numerically simulate such morphing wings.