• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.189-192
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• 2014

Recently, development of electric powered UAV for high altitude and long endurance mission has been conducted worldwide. Long endurance requirement necessitates high lift over drag (L/D) aerodynamic characteristics and lightweight structures, leading to highly flexible wings with high aspect ratio. These highly flexible wings increase the danger of catastrophic aircraft failure due to flutter, which is a dynamic aeroelastic instability occurring from the interaction of aerodynamic, inertial, and elastic forces acting on the aircraft flying through the air. In this paper, flexible wing for electric powered UAV whose skin is fabricated using mylar film for lightweight design is briefly explained. In addition, flutter analysis procedures and results for the flexible wing in order to substantiate the aeroelastic stability requirements are presented.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2014

Recent developments for high altitude, long endurance conventional UAVs(HALE UAVs) have revealed new issues regarding aircraft structure design and analysis. First of all, due to intensive mission requirements, the structures of HALE UAVs have lightweight and very flexible main wing with high aspect ratio, and slender fuselage. For this kind of structures, aeroelastic characteristics are different from conventional aircrafts. Hence, currently developed analysis methods are not suitable to fully understand strucutral dynamics of the very flexible aircraft, and to guarantee structural reliability. Therefore, various structural studies considering nonlinear behaviors which are generally ignored for the conventional aircraft strucutral analyis have been attracting researchers interests. Nonlinear flutter of the very flexible wing is one of the subject to be studied in combination with strong coupling between aeroelastic characteristics and flight dynamics. Herein, as preliminary study, modeling and nonlinear system analysis of the 2D airfoild with torsional nonlinearity have been discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.226-231
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• 2013

Recent developments for high altitude, long endurance conventional UAVs (HALE UAVs) have revealed new issues regarding aircraft structure design and analysis. First of all, due to intensive mission requirements, the structures of HALE UAVs have lightweight and very flexible main wing with high aspect ratio, and slender fuselage. For this kind of structures, aeroelastic characteristics are different from conventional aircrafts. Hence, currently developed analysis methods are not suitable to fully understand strucutral dynamics of the very flexible aircraft, and to guarantee structural reliability. Therefore, various structural studies considering nonlinear behaviors which are generally ignored for the conventional aircraft strucutral analyis have been attracting researchers interests. Nonlinear flutter of the very flexible wing is one of the subject to be studied in combination with strong coupling between aeroelastic characteristics and flight dynamics. Herein, as preliminary study, modeling and nonlinear system analysis of the 2D airfoild with torsional nonlinearity have been discussed.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.99-105
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• 2006

In this study, nonlinear static and dynamic aeroelastic analyses for a high-aspect-ratio wing have been performed. To achieve these aims, the transonic small disturbance (TSD) theory for the aerodynamic analysis and the large deflection beam theory considering a geometrical nonlinearity for the structural analysis are applied, respectively. For the coupling between fluid and structure, the transformation of a displacement from the structural mesh to the aerodynamic grid is performed by a shape function which is used for the finite element and the inverse transformation of force by work equivalent load method. To validate the current method, the present analysis results of a high-aspect-ratio wing are compared with the experimental results. Static deformations in the vertical and torsional directions caused by an angle of attack and gravity loading are compared with experimental results. Also, static and dynamic aeroelastic characteristics are investigated. The comparisons of the flutter speed and frequency between a linear and nonlinear analysis are presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.35-43
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• 2017

Research for solar-powered high altitude long endurance(HALE) UAV was conducted by Korea Aerospace Research Institute(KARI), and the EAV-3 with 19.5m wing span was developed. For HALE flight, aircraft should be lightly designed. Especially, airframe structure that accounts for a large portion of the total weight of aircraft should be lightweight. In this paper, development process of airframe structure for solar-powered HALE UAV, EAV-3, is described briefly. Domestic developed T-800 grade CFRP(Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) composite material with high modulus and strength was used to design main load carrying structures. Flightloads analysis that takes into account large structural deformation was carried out. Stress and flutter analyses for airframe structure sizing were conducted. Static strength test for main wing and aircraft ground vibration test were conducted successfully and structural integrity was secured.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.219-231
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• 2014

We develop a preliminary design optimization procedure in this paper regarding the wing planform in a solar-powered high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle. A high-aspect-ratio wing has been widely adopted in this type of a vehicle, due to both the high lift-to-drag ratio and lightweight design. In the preliminary design, its characteristics need to be addressed correctly, and analyzed in an appropriate manner. In this paper, we use the three-dimensional Euler equation to analyze the wing aerodynamics. We also use an advanced structural modeling approach based on a geometrically exact one-dimensional beam analysis. Regarding the structural integrity of the wing, we determine detailed configuration parameters, specifically the taper ratio and the span length. Next, we conduct a multi-objective optimization scheme based on the response surface method, using the present baseline configuration. We consider the structural integrity as one of the constraints. We reduce the wing weight by approximately 25.3 % from that in the baseline configuration, and also decrease the power required approximately 3.4 %. We confirm that the optimized wing has sufficient flutter margin and improved static longitudinal/directional stability characteristics, as compared to those of the baseline configuration.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.446-457
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• 2012

Aeroelastic analysis of an aircraft with a high aspect ratio wing for medium altitude and long endurance capability was attempted in this paper. In order to achieve such an objective, various structural models were adopted. The traditional approach has been based on a one-dimensional Euler-Bernoulli beam model. The structural analysis results of the present beam model were compared with those by the three-dimensional NASTRAN finite element model. In it, a taper ratio of 0.5 was applied; it was comprised of 21 ribs and 3 spars, and included two control surfaces. The relevant unsteady aerodynamic forces were obtained by using ZAERO, which is based on the doublet lattice method that considers flow compressibility. To obtain the unsteady aerodynamic force, the structural mode shapes and natural frequencies were transferred to ZAERO. Two types of unsteady aerodynamic forces were considered. The first was the unsteady aerodynamic forces which were based on the one-dimensional beam shape; the other was based on the three-dimensional FEM model shape. These two types of aerodynamic forces were compared, and applied to the foregoing flutter analysis. The ultimate goal of the present research is to analyze the possible interaction between the rigid-body degrees of freedom and the aeroelastic modes. This will be achieved after the development of a reliable nonlinear beam formulation that would validate the current results as well as enable a thorough investigation of the nonlinearity. Moreover, such analysis will allow for an examination of the above-mentioned interaction between the flight dynamics and aeroelastic modes with the inclusion of the rigid body degrees of freedom.