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Aerodynamic benefits of flexible morphing airfoil for SUAV

Conference Paper  in  AIP Conference Proceedings · August 2019

DOI: 10.1063/1.5120189

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Aerodynamic benefits of flexible morphing
airfoil for SUAV
Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 2134, 020002 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5120189
Published Online: 07 August 2019

Rajesh Senthil Kumar Thangeswaran, Swathi Venkateswaran, Thayalan Kalaiselvan, Parthasarathi

Aravindan, and Sivakumar Venugopal

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© 2019 Author(s).
 Aerodynamic Benefits of Flexible Morphing Airfoil for
SUAV

Rajesh Senthil Kumar Thangeswaran1, a), Swathi Venkateswaran1, Thayalan

Kalaiselvan1, Parthasarathi Aravindan1 and Sivakumar Venugopal1

1
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,
India
a)
Corresponding author: t_rajesh@cb.amrita.edu

Abstract. This work is conducted to study the aerodynamic benefits of the flexible morphing airfoil for small unmanned
aerial vehicles. The flexible airfoil is divided along its chord and modelled as two cantilever beams. Fluid-structure
simulation is conducted to morph the camber of the flexible airfoil and to generate the morphed airfoil geometries. Seven
morphed airfoils of varying camber are generated and numerically tested in the operating Reynolds number of small
unmanned aerial vehicles. Under the assumption of steady level flight, suitable morphed airfoils are selected and are found
to show 1.74%-14.90% drop in the drag coefficient for the same lift coefficients.

INTRODUCTION
Developments in the field of morphing wing have been detailed by Barbarino et.al [1]; it brings out the problems
faced in realizing the morphing technology in commercial flyers. It was noted that existing and near-term technologies
can be used to morph the wings of small UAVs and the benefits of such morphing can be proven [1-3]. In this case,
the beneficial method is to morph the camber of the airfoil to improve aerodynamic efficiency. In most of the morphing
airfoil research for SUAVs, the tail portion of the airfoils was morphed in order to integrate the flap action into the
airfoil section and very little research has been done towards morphing an airfoil into another airfoil [4-8]. This work
brings out the aerodynamic benefits of flexible airfoils for SUAV application. Flexible airfoil completely morphs from
its base shape into new airfoil. Morphed airfoil geometries were extracted through one-way fluid structure interaction
simulations by exposing the airfoil to actuation load and aerodynamic load. The aerodynamic performance of morphed
airfoils was studied in cruise and loiter phases of SUAV. For the desired lift coefficients at level flight conditions,
suitable morphed airfoil configurations were selected to have low drag coefficient.

GEOMETRY AND COMPUTATIONAL MODELING

This section discusses about the geometry of flexible airfoil and procedures followed to generate the morphed
airfoil configurations through one-way fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations. The flexible airfoil was modelled
using NACA 0012 as the base airfoil. The target airfoil used in this study to scale the amount of morphing was Eppler
201. NACA 0012 is a symmetric airfoil wherein Eppler 201 has 3.1% camber at 44% of chord, both having equivalent
thickness. The geometry of flexible airfoil with chord of 305mm and width of 10mm shown in Fig.1a, was inspired
from a fish skeleton. The airfoil was divided at 44% of the chord and converted into two cantilever beams (Cant-A &
Cant-B) by applying fixed boundary condition at the dividing location as shown in Fig.1a. The actuation loads were

International Conference on Applied Mechanics and Optimisation (ICAMeO-2019)

AIP Conf. Proc. 2134, 020002-1–020002-4; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5120189
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1877-6/$30.00

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applied at two locations (1.2%C-Load 1 and 90%C-Load 2) by preserving the leading edge and trailing edge geometry
to satisfy aerodynamic constraints. The flexible airfoil consists of 16 stringers inclined at 630 and 17 stringers inclined
at 610 in Cant-A and Cant-B respectively as shown in Fig.1a. Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene of Young’s Modulus
2.14GPa and Poisson ratio 0.35 was used in webs, central-spine, leading and trailing edges. Silicone Rubber of
Young’s Modulus 80MPa and Poisson ratio 0.45 was used in top and bottom skins.

(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 1. Geometry and Modeling: (a) Flexible airfoil, (b) Flow chart for One-way FSI and (c) Actuation load vs tip
deflection.

(a) (b)
FIGURE 2. Comparison of morphed airfoils with base and target airfoil: (a) 0%C airfoil with NACA0012, (b) 3.1%C airfoil
with Eppler-201.

(a) (b)
FIGURE 3. Drag polar of morphed airfoils with base and target airfoil: (a) Re = 2.5x105 and (b) Re=4.8x105.

The morphed airfoils were generated using 1-way FSI simulations in ANSYS workbench as noted in Fig.1b [9].
Transient shear stress transport (TSST) equation was used in fluid dynamic solver to calculate the pressure field over
airfoil, which is capable of capturing the laminar separation bubbles in Reynolds number of orders 10 5. CFD domain
was modelled as C-H domain with 10mm thickness in z-direction and it extends 25times of the chord of airfoil in x &
y-directions. Velocity inlet, pressure outlet and wall were used as the boundary conditions. CFD mesh contains
650,000 cells for which mesh independent solution was reached. Number of cells in the structural mesh was
maintained close to the CFD mesh. Time averaged pressure loads extracted for 00, 40 and 80 angles of attack in
Reynolds number of 2.5x105 from the fluid dynamic solver were transferred into static structural solver and applied
on the surface of the airfoil along with actuation loads. Firstly, actuation load versus deflection curve was plotted as
shown in Fig.1c, from which the actuation loads for required tip deflections were obtained and used to generate

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morphed airfoil geometries whose camber were 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, 2%, 2.5% and 3.1% of the chord. It was noted
that surface curvatures of morphed airfoils were not affected by the pressure loads for considered angles of attack as
shown in Fig.2. The aerodynamic performance of the seven morphed airfoils along with NACA 0012 and Eppler 201
was tested in loiter Reynolds numbers of 2.5x105 and cruise Reynolds number of 4.8x105, using XFLR5 V6.04 [10,11].
The angle of attack was varied from -4o to 16o, with an increment of 0.5o and the drag polar of all nine airfoils were
evaluated as shown in Fig.3. The aerodynamic performance of the airfoils were stored in an airfoil database created
using MYSQL V.5.7 [12].

BENEFITS OF MORPHING: A CASE STUDY

Consider a straight wing SUAV, assuming it undergoes steady level flight in loiter Reynolds numbers of 2.5x105
and cruise Reynolds number of 4.8x105 at various altitudes from sea level to 2200 meters. Table 1 lists the design
specifications of straight wing SUAV based on the available literatures [13]. Equation 1 estimates the lift co-efficient
required to maintain steady level flight at various altitudes. Equation 2 corrects lift coefficient by multiplying a factor
1.25 to obtain the airfoil’s lift coefficients, which is calculated based on relation between lift curve slope of wing and
airfoil [14]. Airfoil’s performance data stored in MYSQL database is retrieved using the in-house MATLAB code
[15]. For the required lift coefficient, the code searches as well as interpolates the data to find the morphed airfoil with
low drag coefficient and writes the same as the output.
L / S W / S 0.5 u ρ u U2 u CL (1)

cl 1.25 u CL (2)

Table 1. Available design specification of straight wing SUAV and re-calculated design specifications for morphing SUAV
S.no Specifications Straight wing Morphing
SUAV SUAV
1 Wing loading, N/m2 95 59.72
2 Chord, m 0.2418 0.305
3 Aspect ratio 6 6
4 Wing Area, m2 0.3508 0.5582
5 Total Weight, N 33.326 33.331

Fig. 4 shows the comparison of the drag coefficients of base and target airfoils with the selected morphed airfoils
for various altitudes. At a Reynolds number of 2.5x105, the 2.5%C morphed airfoil shows 1.74%-3.14% and 29.35%-
39.68% reduction in drag coefficients compared to the target and base airfoil respectively. As the Reynolds number
is increased to 4.8x105, the 1%C morphed airfoil shows 13.06%-14.90% and 6.16%-7.35% reduction in drag
coefficients compared to the target and base airfoil respectively.

(a) (b)
FIGURE 4. Drag coefficients of selected morphed airfoils with base and target airfoils at various altitudes: (a) Re = 2.5x105 and
(b) Re=4.8x105.

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 Generally, extra mass gets added to the system due to morphing and this leads to the mass penalty and affects the
performance of the vehicle. To retain the above computed aerodynamic benefits and to account for the mass penalty,
the design specifications were recalculated. This was done under the assumption that increasing the wing size is
proportional to the mass added to the system. For the same aspect ratio, span of the wing and the thickness of the
airfoil were increased by changing the airfoil’s chord. The chord of the airfoil was taken as 0.305m which was used
to develop the flexible morphing airfoil [8]. Even though there was a reduction in wing loading of morphing SUAV,
total weight of the morphing SUAV was maintained similar to that of the straight wing SUAV. From this study, it was
understood that the total weight of morphing SUAV should include the extra mass due to morphing systems during
the design stage itself.

CONCLUSIONS

1. In the considered design, there is no local deformations on the surface of the morphed airfoils due to the application
of pressure load. And also, the surface curvatures are not affected for varying magnitude of pressure loads.
2. The 2.5%C morphed airfoil has low sectional-drag coefficient for Reynolds number of 2.5x10 5 and there is 1.74%-
3.14% reduction in the sectional drag coefficient compared to that of target airfoil. Similarly, 1%C morphed
airfoils shows low sectional drag coefficients for the Reynolds number of 4.8x10 5 and there is 13.06%-14.90%
reduction in the sectional drag coefficient compared to that of target airfoil. This study indicates that the morphing
airfoil’s camber decrease as there is increase in the Reynolds number.
3. The aerodynamic efficiency increases as there is reduction in sectional drag coefficient for the given sectional-lift
coefficient and this influences the range and endurance of the straight wing SUAV.
4. Using morphing wing instead of conventional wing in the existing SUAV will add extra mass in to the system
and this leads to the mass penalty. Either the morphing SUAV has to be designed from conceptual design stage
or the existing SUAV has to be redesigned to account for the extra mass due to morphing. This can be done by
adding extra mass to the empty weight of the aircraft at the conceptual design stage itself or else the structural
weight of existing SUAV has to be reduced using suitable light-weight composites.

REFERENCES
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2. M.I. Friswell, “Morphing Aircraft: An Improbable Beam?,” in the proceedings of ASME 2014 Conference
on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Materials , Newport, 2014, pp.1-7.
3. S. Vasista, L. Tong, and K.C Wong, J. Aircr. 49, pp.11-28 (2012).
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Maryland, College Park, 2004.
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“Numerical analysis of discrete element camber morphing airfoil in the Reynolds number of conventional
flyers,” in I-DAD 2018 1, Lecture notes in Mechanical Engineering, edited by U. Chandrasekhar et al. (
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