Design of a shape adaptive airfoil actuated by a Shape Memory Alloy strip for airplane tail

R. Shirzadeh; K. Raissi Charmacani; M. Tabesh

doi:10.1117/12.879465

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28 April 2011 Design of a shape adaptive airfoil actuated by a Shape Memory Alloy strip for airplane tail

R. Shirzadeh, K. Raissi Charmacani, M. Tabesh

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Proceedings Volume 7979, Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2011; 79790N (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.879465
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2011, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Of the factors that mainly affect the efficiency of the wing during a special flow regime, the shape of its airfoil cross section is the most significant. Airfoils are generally designed for a specific flight condition and, therefore, are not fully optimized in all flight conditions. It is very desirable to have an airfoil with the ability to change its shape based on the current regime. Shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators activate in response to changes in the temperature and can recover their original configuration after being deformed. This study presents the development of a method to control the shape of an airfoil using SMA actuators. To predict the thermomechanical behaviors of an SMA thin strip, 3D incremental formulation of the SMA constitutive model is implemented in FEA software package ABAQUS. The interactions between the airfoil structure and SMA thin strip actuator are investigated. Also, the aerodynamic performance of a standard airfoil with a plain flap is compared with an adaptive airfoil.

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R. Shirzadeh, K. Raissi Charmacani, and M. Tabesh "Design of a shape adaptive airfoil actuated by a Shape Memory Alloy strip for airplane tail", Proc. SPIE 7979, Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2011, 79790N (28 April 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.879465

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