Aero-Structural Optimization of Three-Dimensional Adaptive Wings with Embedded Smart Actuators

The design of morphing wings involves the disciplines of aerodynamics and structural mechanics; the aero-structural coupling is of chief importance in case smart materials are used as distributed actuators. Considering these specific requirements, this paper presents an approach to optimize concurrently the variables describing the wing external shape, the internal compliant structure, and the embedded actuators. An aeroelastic analysis tool is developed to simulate the response of distributed compliance three-dimensional wings, considering the activation of the smart materials. A method to formulate the optimization requirements based on the aircraft mission is presented, using the aerodynamic performance from the aeroelastic study in the optimization goal. To prove the validity and the computational feasibility of this methodology, a morphing wing for a 3-m-wingspan radio-controlled plane is optimized. A structural concept actuated by single crystal Macro Fiber Composites and dielectric elastomers is introduced, and its compliant structure is parameterized using a novel compact Voronoi-based representation. The optimized wing design produces rolling moments sufficient to guarantee the controllability of the flight. Numerical evaluation of the aerodynamic efficiency shows that an optimal activation of the embedded actuators further increases the advantages of morphing outside the design condition with respect to rigid wings.