Comparative Aerodynamic Performance Analysis of Camber Morphing and Conventional Airfoils

Majid, Tuba; Joe, Woong Yeol

doi:10.3390/app112210663

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(51 reference statements)

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“…Studies that investigated the performance of morphing aircraft addressed aerodynamical performance aspects such as

and

as well as flight envelopes for flight dynamics and control [ 27 , 31 , 90 , 91 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 ]. Some representative works of a camber morphing wing aircraft’s aerodynamical characteristics compared their performance to those of conventional wing aircraft [ 72 , 73 ]. However, the flight range and endurance of a camber morphing wing aircraft have been overlooked.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, the FLUENT setup was benchmarked. Then, the settings were maintained as identical to those of a previous study described in [ 73 ]. The values for the air density (

) and velocity (

) inputs corresponded to the cruising conditions of our RQ-7a Shadow UAV model as shown in Table 1 .…”

Section: Computational Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the focus of morphing mechanism development, topics such as (1) material selection and analysis [46][47][48][49][50][51], (2) structure and solid mechanics development [50,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59], (3) smart materials for actuation [60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67], and (4) conventional actuators for morphing [61,66,67] are primary. In morphing wing analysis regarding design and implementation, (1) analytical or experimental modeling, (2) validation [43,[68][69][70][71], (3) performance and characteristics analysis [72][73][74][75][76][77], and (4) aeroelasticity analysis [78][79][80] are the topics being investigated. Other than those previously mentioned, control systems and flight control and dynamics for morphing wing aircraft [81][82]…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Enhanced Range and Endurance Evaluation of a Camber Morphing Wing Aircraft

Joe

Majid

2023

Biomimetics

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Flight range, endurance, maneuverability, and agility are the key elements that determine an aircraft’s performance. Both conventional and morphing wing aircraft have been well studied and estimated in all aspects of performance. When considering the performance of morphing aircraft, most works address aspects of the aerodynamical performance such as L and D as well as flight envelopes for flight dynamics and control perspectives. However, the actual benefits of adopting morphing technologies in practical aspects such as aircraft operation, mission planning, and sustainability have not been addressed so far. Thus, this paper addresses the practical aspect of the benefits when adopting a camber morphing wing aircraft. Identical geometrical and computational conditions were applied to an already-existing aircraft: the RQ-7a Shadow. The wing structure was switched between a fixed wing and a camber morphing wing to generate conventional and morphing wing geometries. The fixed-wing cases had varying flap deflection angles, and the camber morphing wing cases had varying camber rates from 4% to 8%. Once the CL values of the fixed and morphing wing cases were matched up to two significant figures, the CD and CL/CD were analyzed for these matching cases to calculate the flight endurance, range, and improvement. When NACA 6410 is adopted, a 17% improvement in flight range and endurance average was expected. In the case of NACA 8410, an average 60% improvement was expected.

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“…Studies that investigated the performance of morphing aircraft addressed aerodynamical performance aspects such as

and

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, the FLUENT setup was benchmarked. Then, the settings were maintained as identical to those of a previous study described in [ 73 ]. The values for the air density (

) and velocity (

) inputs corresponded to the cruising conditions of our RQ-7a Shadow UAV model as shown in Table 1 .…”

Section: Computational Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Enhanced Range and Endurance Evaluation of a Camber Morphing Wing Aircraft

Joe

Majid

2023

Biomimetics

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“…Much of the previously published research on aeronautical morphing structures has focused mostly on camber-morphing wings and adaptive trailing-edge technology [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Camber-morphing is a type of out-of-plane morphing that bends the camber line of the airfoil, varying the local lift distribution to control and maneuver the aircraft, essentially converting a low-lift airfoil shape into that of a higher performance, high-lift airfoil.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conventional aircraft control the camber of the wing by utilizing trailing-edge discrete surfaces, whereas camber-morphing surfaces provide a smooth contour with no additional gaps, thus avoiding the large drag profiles associated with conventional control surfaces. Majid and Jo [14] conducted a comparative aerodynamic performance analysis of camber-morphing and conventional airfoils. This analysis validated the benefits of variable camber-morphing wings compared to conventional ones, and proved their superiority in generating higher aerodynamic efficiency, agility, and maneuverability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Analysis of MataMorph-3: A Fully Morphing UAV with Camber-Morphing Wings and Tail Stabilizers

et al. 2022

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Conventional aircraft use discrete flight control surfaces to maneuver during flight. The gaps and discontinuities of these control surfaces generate drag, which degrades aerodynamic and power efficiencies. Morphing technology aims to replace conventional wings with advanced wings that can change their shape to control the aircraft with the minimum possible induced drag. This paper presents MataMorph-3, a fully morphing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with camber-morphing wings and tail stabilizers. Although previous research has presented successful designs for camber-morphing wing core mechanisms, skin designs suffered from wrinkling, warping, or sagging problems that result in reduced reliability and aerodynamic efficiency. The wing and tail stabilizers of MataMorph-3 feature hybrid ribs with solid leading-edge sections that house servomotors, and compliant trailing-edge sections with integrated flexible ribbons that are connected to the servomotors to camber-morph the ribs. Thin laminated carbon fiber composite skin slides smoothly over the compliant rib sections upon morphing, guided by innovative trailing-edge sliders and skin-supporting linkage mechanisms strategically located between the ribs. Sample prototypes were built and tested to show the effectiveness of the proposed design solutions in enabling smooth camber-morphing. The proposed design provides a better alternative to stretchable skins in morphing airplane designs through the concept of skin sliding.

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