Numerical and Experimental Analysis of the Static and Dynamic Morphing Characteristics of a Chiral Core Airfoil

Aeroelastic tailoring requires structural compliance and thus often conflicts with stiffness requirements to carry prescribed aerodynamic loads. Recently, however, the application of cellular structural concepts has suggested the potential to achieve compliance while conserving required load-carrying capacity. Among the proposed concepts, a chiral geometry in particular is a novel configuration which features an in-plane negative Poisson's ratio which leads to a very high shear modulus, while maintaining some degree of compliance. In particular, the chiral geometry allows large continuous deformations of the airfoil assembly, with the constitutive material remaining in the linear region of its stress-strain curve. The ability to sustain large deformations without exceeding yield conditions is required to recover the original shape and to provide smooth deformations as required by aerodynamic considerations. In previous work, a coupled-physics model, comprising of simultaneous CFD and elastic analyses, is developed to investigate the influence of the chiral core geometry on the behavior of a given airfoil. The modification of geometric parameters defining the considered layout leads to significant variations in mechanical properties, which can be exploited to achieve various levels of compliance. The morphing capabilities of the proposed airfoil, quantified as camber changes, are evaluated for various design configurations of the internal core structure. Specifically, three such airfoils have been constructed to study the influence of core geometric parameters on the elastic behavior observed in numerical simulations. Experiments on the aforementioned airfoil samples are characterized by imposing large camber-wise deflections, via static loading, and measuring the resulting strain, both in the honeycomb core and in the airfoil profile. The experimental results confirm the ability of the airfoils to sustain large deflections while not exceeding yield strain limits, in addition to producing continuous deformations, which are critical for the implementation of aeroelastic tailoring.