Two-level Conceptual Design of Morphing Wings

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel approach to the conceptual design of morphing aircraft by means of a two-level design approach. The first level consists of a morphing wing model specific to the concept that is investigated. This is used to identify the types of morphing in the concept and generate the corresponding morphing constraints for the second level. The second level is a generic morphing aeroelastic optimisation framework that is used to optimise the morphing parameters and find the optimal morphing configuration for the flight cases under consideration. The second level also returns the morphing energy requirements to overcome the forces induced by the external loads, which can be used to assess the feasibility of the concept and potentially identify new constraints for a second optimisation run. The design approach has been applied to the optimisation of both a twist morphing wing and shear morphing wing to illustrate the potential of the design approach. The results clearly show the potential of the morphing technologies and the added information this design approach can give in the conceptual design stage.