Concurrent design of a morphing aerofoil with variable stiffness bi-stable laminates

Morphing systems able to efficiently adjust their characteristics to resolve the conflicting demands of changing operating conditions offer great potential for enhanced performance and functionality. The main practical challenge, however, consists in combining the desired compliance to accomplish radical reversible geometry modifications at reduced actuation effort with the requirement of high stiffness imposed by operational functions. A potential decoupling strategy entails combining the conformal shape adaptation benefits of distributed compliance with purely elastic stiffness variability provided by embedded bi-stable laminates. This selective compliance can allow for on-demand stiffness adaptation by switching between the stable states of the internal elements. The current paper considers the optimal positioning of the bi-stable components within the structure while assessing the energy required for morphing under aerodynamic loading. Compared to a time-invariant system, activating specific deformation modes permits decreasing the amount of actuation energy, and hence the amount of actuation material to be carried. A concurrent design and optimisation framework is implemented to develop selective configurations targeting different flight conditions. First, an aerodynamically favourable high-lift mode achieves large geometric changes due to reduced actuation demands. This is only possible by virtue of the internally tailored compliance, arising from the stable state switch of the embedded bi-stable components. A second, stiff configuration, targets operation under increased aerodynamic loading. The dynamic adequacy of the design is proved via high fidelity fluid–structure interaction simulations. (paper)