Numerical and Experimental Investigation and Optimization of a Morphing Airfoil

摘要

The recent developments in smart material technologies generated several researches involving their application in the aeronautical field. New methods for geometry variation have been developed as a superior means of aircraft adaptation. The morphing concept is not recent, since several ways of adapting wings have been incorporated during the past few decades. However, the new technologies in smart materials allow more efficient airplane adaptation, improving its performance in a wide variety of flight conditions. The continuous and active camber variation is one way to contribute with this research field. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) should be the first class of aircraft to have their performance improved with this technology. The main motivation of this work is the design, manufacture, optimization and test of a morphing airfoil with continuous camber variation. A composite piezoelectric material known as Macro-Fiber Composite (MFC) is used as an actuator. In order to determine the ideal morphing airfoil shape for each flight condition of a determined aircraft an optimization process employing a genetic algorithm is presented. Numerical simulations are performed using the geometries experimentally measured. The aerodynamic performance of the morphing airfoil is compared to a conventional flapped airfoil as well as with a profile of fixed geometry.