Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Numerical analysis of a drone bio-inspired morphing wing actuated by shape memory alloy elements
Submission Author:
BRUNO DIAS SANTOS , RJ
Co-Authors:
BRUNO DIAS SANTOS, Pedro Manuel Calas Lopes Pacheco, Cristina Souza
Presenter: BRUNO DIAS SANTOS
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-0515
Abstract
Smart materials are able to change their characteristics and properties when subjected to different external fields, such as thermal, mechanical or magnetic. Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are one of the main smart materials used today. Due to their remarkable capacity to develop large forces and displacements, SMAs are suitable for actuators employed in the aeronautical industry, among others. An important application of SMA actuators occurs in the field of morphing wings for aircrafts. Through this approach, different geometric wing configurations can be used to meet different conditions during flight. In order to analyze the state of the art regarding this technology, a search was conducted in patent databases seeking morphing wings actuated by SMAs elements. 65 patent documents filed between 1991 and 2019 were found, where about 43% were filed since 2015. In this paper, a proposal for a drone bio-inspired morphing wing structure actuated by SMAs is presented. A constitutive model with internal variables is used to represent the SMA behavior. Numerical simulations were carried out using a finite element model to study the performance of the morphing wing for different flight conditions. These simulations show that the proposed structure when actuated by the SMA element under a proper thermomechanical loading achieves an increase of approximately 5 % in maximum lift that is useful for take-off phase of flight and an increase of approximately 31% in lift at zero angle of attack that is advantageous for maneuvering control. The proposed methodology can also be used to assess the performance of morphing wings for different flight conditions in order to establish optimal geometric configurations.
Keywords
Smart Structures, Shape Memory Alloys, morphing wings, bioinspired design
