Aeroelastic control of a wing with active skins using piezoelectric patches

In this paper, an experimental demonstration of aircraft flutter control using piezoelectric materials it is presented. Wind tunnel models were designed, fabricated, installed, and tested. Computational structural and aerodynamic wing models were created, in order to determine the wing natural frequencies and modal shapes, and to calculate its flutter speed. A digital control law was designed and implemented. Open and closed loop vibration and flutter tests were conducted in the wind tunnel, with excellent correlation achieved with computational predictions. A wing with active piezoelectric actuators distributed on the wing skin was designed and tested. The experimental results proved that the active wing exhibited significant aeroelastic control when compared with the corresponding passive wing.