Effectiveness of Wing Twist Morphing in Roll Control

Abstract

This paper is focused on numerical investigations that analyze the advantages obtained from high-aspect-ratio wings with unconventional roll control strategies based on wing twist morphing. A sailplane, the G103-B, produced by the GROB Werke company, was chosen as the reference aircraft for the analyses. For confidentiality reasons, the data disclosed by the builder covered only general properties such as the main dimensions, the lifting surface airfoils and attitudes, the characteristic speeds and a rough mass budget. As a consequence of this, “reverse-engineering” was considered necessary to define a reasonable wing structural layout that enabled the analysis of the elastic-aircraft roll dynamics. A preliminary sizing of the wing structure was addressed using CS-22 airworthiness requirements and by adopting fast, elementary approaches that are well known in the literature. The estimated structural arrangement, which was verified using a finite element analysis, was then used to generate the aircraft dynamic model. The elastic-aircraft roll dynamics were first investigated with regard to conventional aileron-based control. Extra modes simulating controlled twist distributions along the wing span were added into the aircraft modal base and their effects on the aircraft roll dynamics were analyzed. The conventional (aileron-based) and the unconventional (wing twist morphing) roll control strategies were compared from the aerodynamic and the aeroelastic standpoints, and the benefits achieved with the unconventional strategy are summarized

Flutter Analysis of a Morphing Wing Technology Demonstrator: Numerical Simulation and Wind Tunnel Testinga

“…Many other aero-elastic studies were performed to prove the excellent qualities of the morphing structures with regards to their static and dynamic aero-elastic effects. Pecora R, Magnifico M, Amoroso F and Monaco E. have proposed the study of wing twist morphing on the aircraft roll control 15 and also they explored the flutter effects of a morphing wing trailing edge 16 . Xie C, Liu Y and Yang C 17 have explored methods to realize aero-elastic static and flutter analysis using lifting -line theory for very flexible wings, which were encountered at high-altitude long-endurance aircrafts with high-aspect-ration wings.…”

Drag Performance of Twist Morphing MAV Wing

“…The morphing MAV wing designer have to consider the limitation in wing size, limited energy, complex morphing mechanism, and high aerodynamicwing structural interaction [4]- [6]. Therefore, earlier research on such MAV wing had concentrated more on the its manoeuvrability rather than understanding its aerodynamic performance [7], [8]. Thus, the influence of morphing mobility on drag performances was not well explored.…”

Dynamic Model and Analysis of Asymmetric Telescopic Wing for Morphing Aircraft

“…Ordinarily morphing aircraft can be classified three types:micro morphing small morphing and large morphing. Micro morphing includes variable camber [3,4] and twist [5], small morphing contains variable tip and variable horizontal tail, while variable sweep [6,7],variable span [8] and folding wing belong to large morphing. This paper mainly concentrates on telescopic wing which is one of large morphing techniques.…”