Abstract
A morphing trailing-edge (TE) wing is an important morphing mode in aircraft design. In order to explore the static aeroelastic characteristics of a morphing TE wing, an efficient and feasible method for static aeroelastic analysis has been developed in this paper. A geometrically exact vortex lattice method (VLM) is applied to calculate the aerodynamic forces. Firstly, a typical model of a morphing TE wing is chosen and built which has an active morphing trailing edge driven by a piezoelectric patch. Then, the paper carries out the static aeroelastic analysis of the morphing TE wing and corresponding simulations were carried out. Finally, the analysis results are compared with those of a traditional wing with a rigid trailing edge using the traditional linearized VLM. The results indicate that the geometrically exact VLM can better describe the aerodynamic nonlinearity of a morphing TE wing in consideration of geometrical deformation in aeroelastic analysis. Moreover, out of consideration of the angle of attack, the deflection angle of the trailing edge, among others, the wing system does not show divergence but bifurcation. Consequently, the aeroelastic analysis method proposed in this paper is more applicable to the analysis and design of a morphing TE wing.
Highlights
Morphing aircraft can change the shape of air vehicles and vehicle components to adapt to a changing mission environment and achieve the best flight performance in a variety of missions
The results demonstrated that the resistance of the macrofiber composite (MFC)-driven composite wing is lower, and the driving bandwidth is wider
Morphing trailing-edge wings, which can change their shape during flights, have the potential to improve the aerodynamic characteristics of aircraft, which warrants aeroelastic analysis for the morphing TE wings
Summary
Morphing aircraft can change the shape of air vehicles and vehicle components to adapt to a changing mission environment and achieve the best flight performance in a variety of missions. Kansas University has conducted research on a novel piezoelectric actuator to drive tip deformation of microaircraft [3]. Flight tests showed excellent roll control of the piezoelectric actuator for the microaircraft. Onur Bilgen from Virginia Tech University (USA) designed a control system for wingtip torsional deformation of microaircraft by virtue of a macrofiber composite (MFC) and tested the driving performance of MFC for glass fiber composite patches [5]. Wind tunnel tests were conducted to study the difference between the trailing-edge control and the MFC driving wing. Results indicated that the developed span-wise morphing trailing edge led to excellent aerodynamic and structural performance. Ohanian et al and Kochersberger et al compared a novel morphing control surface design employing piezoelectric MFC actuators with a servo-actuated system [8,9,10]. Flight tests are planned to fully prove the benefits of the morphing actuation which achieved 1 million cycles without failure and minimal degradation over a servoactuated design
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