Structural Design and Optimization of an Aircraft Morphing Wing: Composite Skin

A load-bearing morphing skin concept to improve the aerodynamic performance of an aircraft wing is proposed. The concept uses a composite material morphing upper skin coupled to a typical aluminum wing structure. A three-step finite element analysis-based optimization scheme is developed using the minimization of the mass of the composite skin as the objective function, while ensuring it best fits the target morphed aerodynamic profiles. The optimization results are further simplified to ease manufacturing. A series of analytical validations are performed to ensure the structural integrity of the morphing skin as part of the original wing section subject to the design limit loads. Finally, the deformation of the skin is validated experimentally on a testbed model under 1g design limit load and several morphing conditions. The experimental results show that skin deformations are in line with the finite element analysis predictions for both the design limit loads and the target morphed shapes. This validates that the finite element analysis-based optimization procedure developed here is appropriate for the design of a morphing wing section with active aerodynamic improvement capabilities, while preserving its structural integrity.