Active Aeroelastic Aircraft and Its Impact on Structure and Flight Control Systems Design
Abstract
Active aeroelastic concepts have been proposed for several years now. Their common incentive are improvements of aircraft performance and stability by the intentional use of aeroelastic effects. This means that the basic flexibility characteristics of a new aircraft project must be included in the early conceptual design process, and the structural and flight control system design must be coupled very closely. The knowledge about the magnitude of aeroelastic impacts on aerodynamic forces and aircraft stability is still very limited within the community of people involved in aeronautical engineering - even among the specialists in aeroelasticity. For a successful application of active aeroelastic concepts, their proper identification is therefore the first step. It will be shown for some selected examples, which static aeroelastic effects are usually very important for conventional designs, and how they can be made even more effective in a positive sense for future designs. The accuracy and proper use of aeroelastic prediction methods and analysis models is addressed briefly in the context of interactions with other disciplines, and ideas are developed for the multi-disciplinary design process of active aeroelastic aircraft concepts. Whereas static aeroelastic effects usually only become important with increasing airspeed, a concept will be demonstrated for aeroelastic improvements, which also works at low speeds.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADP010485
Entities
People
- Johann Krammer
- Johannes Schweiger