Validation of morphine wing methodologies on an unmanned aerial system and a wind tunnel technology demonstrator

To increase the aerodynamic efficiency of aircraft, in order to reduce the fuel consumption, a novel morphing wing concept has been developed. It consists in replacing a part of the wing upper and lower surfaces with a flexible skin whose shape can be modified using an actuation system placed inside the wing structure. Numerical studies in two and three dimensions were performed in order to determine the gains the morphing system achieves for the case of an Unmanned Aerial System and for a morphing technology demonstrator based on the wing tip of a transport aircraft. To obtain the optimal wing skin shapes in function of the flight condition, different global optimization algorithms were implemented, such as the Genetic Algorithm and the Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm. To reduce calculation times, a hybrid method was created by coupling the population-based algorithm with a fast, gradient-based local search method. Validations were performed with commercial state-of-the-art optimization tools and demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed methods. For accurately determining the aerodynamic characteristics of the morphing wing, two new methods were developed, a nonlinear lifting line method and a nonlinear vortex lattice method. Both use strip analysis of the span-wise wing section to account for the airfoil shape modifications induced by the flexible skin, and can provide accurate results for the wing drag coefficient. The methods do not require the generation of a complex mesh around the wing and are suitable for coupling with optimization algorithms due to the computational time several orders of magnitude smaller than traditional three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics methods. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional optimizations of the Unmanned Aerial System wing equipped with the morphing skin were performed, with the objective of improving its performances for an extended range of flight conditions. The chordwise positions of the internal actuators, the spanwise number of actuation stations as well as the displacement limits were established. The performance improvements obtained and the limitations of the morphing wing concept were studied. To verify the optimization results, high-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations were also performed, giving very accurate indications of the obtained gains. For the morphing model based on an aircraft wing tip, the skin shapes were optimized in order to control laminar flow on the upper surface. An automated structured mesh generation procedure was developed and implemented. To accurately capture the shape of the skin, a precision scanning procedure was done and its results were included in the numerical model. High-fidelity simulations were performed to determine the upper surface transition region and the numerical results were validated using experimental wind tunnel data

An Optimisation of a Chordwise Slot to Enhance Lateral Flow Control on a UCAV

This research aims to optimise a chordwise slot so that lateral flow control of a flying wing configuration can be enhanced. This was achieved by maximising the airflow rate over the trailing edge control surfaces of the wing. A higher rate of airflow over the trailing edge control surfaces will increase the operationality of control surfaces, resulting in enhanced lateral control of the air vehicle at medium to high angles of attack. Four variables describing the chordwise slot are identified for numerical optimisation. They are: location, width, length, and angle of trajectory of chordwise slot relative to freestream. The results of the airflow rate for the wing with an optimised chordwise slot are compared with a baseline clean configuration. The flying wing configuration with a chordwise slot has shown a higher mass flow rate over the control surfaces of the wing in comparison to the baseline clean configuration, demonstrating that an optimised chordwise slot can be implemented on a flying wing configuration as it successfully controls the lateral flow by maximising the flow rate over the trailing edge control surfaces

Optimization and design of an aircraft's morphing wing-tip demonstrator for drag reduction at low speeds, Part II - Experimental validation using Infra-Red transition measurement from Wind Tunnel tests

In the present paper, an ‘in-house’ genetic algorithm was numerically and experimentally validated. The genetic algorithm was applied to an optimization problem for improving the aerodynamic performances of an aircraft wing tip through upper surface morphing. The optimization was performed for 16 flight cases expressed in terms of various combinations of speeds, angles of attack and aileron deflections. The displacements resulted from the optimization were used during the wind tunnel tests of the wing tip demonstrator for the actuators control to change the upper surface shape of the wing. The results of the optimization of the flow behavior for the airfoil morphing upper-surface problem were validated with wind tunnel experimental transition results obtained with infra-red Thermography on the wing-tip demonstrator. The validation proved that the 2D numerical optimization using the ‘in-house’ genetic algorithm was an appropriate tool in improving various aspects of a wing’s aerodynamic performances

A new non-linear vortex lattice method : applications to wing aerodynamic optimizations

This paper presents a new non-linear formulation of the classical Vortex Lattice Method (VLM) approach for calculating the aerodynamic properties of lifting surfaces. The method accounts for the effects of viscosity, and due to its low computational cost, it represents a very good tool to perform rapid and accurate wing design and optimization procedures. The mathematical model is constructed by using two-dimensional viscous analyses of the wing span-wise sections, according to strip theory, and then coupling the strip viscous forces with the forces generated by the vortex rings distributed on the wing camber surface, calculated with a fully three-dimensional vortex lifting law. The numerical results obtained with the proposed method are validated with experimental data and show good agreement in predicting both the lift and pitching moment, as well as in predicting the wing drag. The method is applied to modifying the wing of an Unmanned Aerial System to increase its aerodynamic efficiency and to calculate the drag reductions obtained by an upper surface morphing technique for an adaptable regional aircraft wing