Dynamic Aeroelastic Response of Camber Morphing Aircraft

Abstract Morphing technology has been intensively studied in the last decades. Camber morphing is one of the most popular and effective types of morphing, and its aerodynamic advantages have been demonstrated. Although its aeroelasticity has been studied in previous research, the coupling between its aeroelasticity and the flight dynamics of the overall aircraft has not been investigated well. This study aims to understand the influence of the aeroelasticity of morphing control surfaces on the flight dynamics of the aircraft. For this objective, an aeroelastic flight simulation framework that can consider camber morphing is developed. For the structural model, finite shell elements are used to capture the behavior of the camber morphing structures. For aerodynamics, an unsteady vortex lattice method is used to estimate the unsteady aerodynamic loads efficiently. A rigid-body flight dynamics is coupled with the structural and aerodynamic model to construct the aeroelastic flight simulation framework. The flight motions of the aircraft with morphing elevators are simulated under open-loop control. The results demonstrated that the aeroelastic response of morphing elevators differs depending on the stiffness of the morphing structure. It is also shown that this leads to the different gusts that the aircraft with morphing elevator experiences severe altitude changes.