Design Segmented Stiff Skin for a Morphing Wing

A morphing aircraft adapts to different missions by changing the shape of its wing. With the wingspan change or chord length change, the wing skin will change, which requires the design of the variable wing covering to meet the morphing wing. The core of the variable stiff wing-covering design is splitting the wing surface. By solving the problem, the sliding morphing of the stiff skin is achieved. According to the characteristics of the wing surface, this paper gives two stiff wing-covering segmentation algorithms. First, based on the change of airfoil curve that happened before and after the chord length change, the horizontal noninterference segmentation and morphed method of rigid wing skin is proposed. The airfoil curve is divided into pieces, and the definition of the curve similarity evaluation criterion (that is, K) is presented. The horizontal rigid-surface morphing is achieved, depending on the noninterference folding morphing and the airfoil curve length difference. Second, according to the fea...