Novel Volume of Solid Technology for Nonlinear Aeroelastic Stability Analysis

Morphing technology enables aerospace vehicles to achieve a broader range of operational modes. Computational aeroelastic and design analysis tools of these vehicles must be able to handle arbitrarily large deformations and shape changes. Innovative Volume of Solid technology is proposed to cast structure/body-dynamics equations in an Eulerian reference frame, preserving the order of accuracy of the fluid and structural differencing methods. In this technology, a unified equation is derived, which requires no moving mesh or grid generation, and imbeds all the interaction forces between fluid and solid. Typical CFD codes may adapt this technology through addition of source terms related to the body motion and by changing effective areas. The technology is especially designed for arbitrary large and quick shape change and deformation in nonlinear aeroelasticity analysis. The developed modeling technology will provide more accurate descriptions of the aerodynamic forces placed on aircraft wings. In Phase I, an in-house multi-physics code will be modified to include the structure/body dynamics in an Eulerian frame. The technique will be evaluated for a telescoping wing case. An existing MEMS-instrumented flapping wing experimental test will be adapted to provide data model validation, A complementary computational-experimental study is planned for Phase II. Future validation, verification and simulation of realistic morphing air vehicle concepts, and its implementation in other DoD CFD codes will be carried out in Phase II.