Contact-aided compliant mechanisms for morphing aircraft skin

Vipul Mehta; Mary Frecker; George Lesieutre

doi:10.1117/12.773599

3 April 2008 Contact-aided compliant mechanisms for morphing aircraft skin

Vipul Mehta, Mary Frecker, George Lesieutre

Proceedings Volume 6926, Modeling, Signal Processing, and Control for Smart Structures 2008; 69260C (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.773599
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2008, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Sandwich structures consisting of contact-aided compliant mechanisms are presented for morphing aircraft skin. A contact mechanism is used to alleviate stresses and to decrease the out-of-plane deflection. A methodology to design such mechanisms, which takes into account the aerodynamic loads, is presented. The method is applied to a small UAV and results are compared with those of honeycomb structures in terms of structural mass, global strain and maximum stresses. Different material models such as linearly elastic and multi-linear elastic are considered. For linearly elastic materials, contact-induced stress-relief is advantageous and for nonlinear elastic materials, reduction of transverse deflection due to contact is useful. In either case, the structural mass of the contact-aided structures is less than that of the corresponding non-contact structures.

Citation Download Citation

Vipul Mehta, Mary Frecker, and George Lesieutre "Contact-aided compliant mechanisms for morphing aircraft skin", Proc. SPIE 6926, Modeling, Signal Processing, and Control for Smart Structures 2008, 69260C (3 April 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.773599

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