X-HALE: A Very Flexible UAV for Nonlinear Aeroelastic Tests

Abstract

The University of Michigan has designed and is currently building an unmanned aerial vehicle, denoted X-HALE, which is aeroelastically representative of very flexible aircraft. The objective of this test bed is to collect unique data of the geometrically nonlinear aeroelastic response coupled with the flight dynamics to be used for future code validation. The aircraft will present specific aeroelastic features (e.g., coupled rigid/elastic body instability, large wing deflection during gust, etc.) that can be measured in flight. Moreover, the airframe construction choice is such that the elastic, inertial and geometric properties can be well characterized. These are requirements driven by the need of the collected data to be used to support validation of coupled nonlinear aeroelastic/flight dynamics codes.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA551706

Entities

People

  • Carlos E. Cesnik
  • Christopher M. Shearer
  • Ella Atkins
  • Nathan A. Pitcher
  • Patrick J. Senatore
  • Weihua Su

Organizations

  • University of Michigan

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aeroelasticity
  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Composite Materials
  • Control Surfaces
  • Data Acquisition
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Horizontal Stabilizers
  • Manufacturing
  • Measurement
  • Systems Engineering
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Wind Tunnel Tests
  • Wind Tunnels
  • Wing Boxes

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerial Unmanned Vehicle Swarm Micro Periodontal Dentistry.
  • Aerodynamics/Aeronautics.
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy