Airfoil Thickness Effects on Morphing Wings

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme L. Caselato de Sousa ◽  
Artur G. Rocha dos Santos ◽  
Augusto C. Sanches ◽  
Osmar Santos ◽  
Domingos A. Rade ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Morphing Wings

Numerical study of geometric morphing wings of the 1303 UCAV

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
B. Nugroho ◽  
J. Brett ◽  
B.T. Bleckly ◽  
R.C. Chin
Keyword(s):  
Flight Control ◽  
Numerical Study ◽  
Aerodynamic Characteristics ◽  
Morphing Wing ◽  
Rolling Moment ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Morphing Wings ◽  
Wing Geometry ◽  
Lift And Drag ◽  
Wing Morphing

ABSTRACT Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) are believed by many to be the future of aerial strike/reconnaissance capability. This belief led to the design of the UCAV 1303 by Boeing Phantom Works and the US Airforce Lab in the late 1990s. Because UCAV 1303 is expected to take on a wide range of mission roles that are risky for human pilots, it needs to be highly adaptable. Geometric morphing can provide such adaptability and allow the UCAV 1303 to optimise its physical feature mid-flight to increase the lift-to-drag ratio, manoeuvrability, cruise distance, flight control, etc. This capability is extremely beneficial since it will enable the UCAV to reconcile conflicting mission requirements (e.g. loiter and dash within the same mission). In this study, we conduct several modifications to the wing geometry of UCAV 1303 via Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to analyse its aerodynamic characteristics produced by a range of different wing geometric morphs. Here we look into two specific geometric morphing wings: linear twists on one of the wings and linear twists at both wings (wash-in and washout). A baseline CFD of the UCAV 1303 without any wing morphing is validated against published wind tunnel data, before proceeding to simulate morphing wing configurations. The results show that geometric morphing wing influences the UCAV-1303 aerodynamic characteristics significantly, improving the coefficient of lift and drag, pitching moment and rolling moment.

Active Camber Morphing Wings Based on Compliant Structures: an Aeroelastic Assessment

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro De Gaspari ◽  
Sergio Ricci ◽  
Lorenzo Travaglini ◽  
Luca Cavagna ◽  
Alexandre Antunes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Morphing Wings

Command Shaping with Feedback Loop for Morphing Wings Control

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petr Benes ◽  
Ales Balon ◽  
Martin Hromcik ◽  
Zbynek Sika
Keyword(s):  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Command Shaping ◽  
Morphing Wings

Modeling and Control of Uncertain Hybrid Structure Flexible, Morphing Wings with Stability and Performance Guarantees

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alok N. Menon ◽  
Animesh Chakravarthy ◽  
Benjamin C. Gruenwald ◽  
Tansel Yucelen ◽  
James E. Steck
Keyword(s):  
Hybrid Structure ◽  
Modeling And Control ◽  
Performance Guarantees ◽  
Morphing Wings ◽  
And Performance ◽  
And Control

How flight feathers stick together to form a continuous morphing wing

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 367 (6475) ◽  
pp. 293-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Y. Matloff ◽  
Eric Chang ◽  
Teresa J. Feo ◽  
Lindsie Jeffries ◽  
Amanda K. Stowers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Connective Tissue ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Elastic Compliance ◽  
Morphing Wing ◽  
Morphing Aircraft ◽  
Morphing Wings ◽  
Aerial Robot

Variable feather overlap enables birds to morph their wings, unlike aircraft. They accomplish this feat by means of elastic compliance of connective tissue, which passively redistributes the overlapping flight feathers when the skeleton moves to morph the wing planform. Distinctive microstructures form “directional Velcro,” such that when adjacent feathers slide apart during extension, thousands of lobate cilia on the underlapping feathers lock probabilistically with hooked rami of overlapping feathers to prevent gaps. These structures unlock automatically during flexion. Using a feathered biohybrid aerial robot, we demonstrate how both passive mechanisms make morphing wings robust to turbulence. We found that the hooked microstructures fasten feathers across bird species except silent fliers, whose feathers also lack the associated Velcro-like noise. These findings could inspire innovative directional fasteners and morphing aircraft.

scholarly journals How pigeons couple three-dimensional elbow and wrist motion to morph their wings

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (133) ◽  
pp. 20170224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda K. Stowers ◽  
Laura Y. Matloff ◽  
David Lentink
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Columba Livia ◽  
Micro Computed Tomography ◽  
Wrist Motion ◽  
Motion Data ◽  
Morphing Wings ◽  
Computed Tomography Scans ◽  
Motion Paths ◽  
Wing Morphing ◽  
Planar Drawing

Birds change the shape and area of their wings to an exceptional degree, surpassing insects, bats and aircraft in their ability to morph their wings for a variety of tasks. This morphing is governed by a musculoskeletal system, which couples elbow and wrist motion. Since the discovery of this effect in 1839, the planar ‘drawing parallels’ mechanism has been used to explain the coupling. Remarkably, this mechanism has never been corroborated from quantitative motion data. Therefore, we measured how the wing skeleton of a pigeon ( Columba livia ) moves during morphing. Despite earlier planar assumptions, we found that the skeletal motion paths are highly three-dimensional and do not lie in the anatomical plane, ruling out the ‘drawing parallels’ mechanism. Furthermore, micro-computed tomography scans in seven consecutive poses show how the two wrist bones contribute to morphing, particularly the sliding ulnare. From these data, we infer the joint types for all six bones that form the wing morphing mechanism and corroborate the most parsimonious mechanism based on least-squares error minimization. Remarkably, the algorithm shows that all optimal four-bar mechanisms either lock, are unable to track the highly three-dimensional bone motion paths, or require the radius and ulna to cross for accuracy, which is anatomically unrealistic. In contrast, the algorithm finds that a six-bar mechanism recreates the measured motion accurately with a parallel radius and ulna and a sliding ulnare. This revises our mechanistic understanding of how birds morph their wings, and offers quantitative inspiration for engineering morphing wings.

The Role of Massive Morphing Wings for Maneuvering a Bio-Inspired Bat-Like Robot

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Colorado ◽  
C. Rossi ◽  
A. Barrientos ◽  
A. Parra ◽  
C. Devia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Morphing Wings
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document