Harnessing phononic materials for unsteady aerodynamic flow control
Abstract
The research objective of this work is to enable phononic materials in robust control of unsteady aerodynamic phenomena, using high-fidelity simulations and phononic material design, fabrication, and testing. Next generation unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) require adaptive flow control strategies that alter unsteady flow behavior to improve aerodynamic performance. Many prominent control strategies involve active actuation that utilizes feedback flow information, which is often costly. A promising alternative that leverages advances in materials science is to use phononic materials, which are compliant and can passively respond to stimuli. Beyond this passive response behavior, phononic materials have frequency-dependent dynamics, making them natural candidates for controlling aerodynamic flows which have inherent timescales. There remain fundamental questions about how phononic materials interact in a nonlinear fluid-structure interaction (FSI) setting with viscous aerodynamic flows, what phononic materials are most useful for flow control, and how phononic materials can be constructed for the targeted aerodynamic applications. Our technical approach will be to use high-fidelity simulations to compute the FSI of flow past an airfoil at various angles of attack for a range of phononic materials. Insights from these simulations will be used to fabricate phononic materials with promising flow control properties that retain lengthscales appropriate for the targeted aerodynamic applications. The anticipated outcomes of this work are the phononic material parameters/behaviors that improve aerodynamic performance, the FSI mechanisms that drive these benefits, and fabricated phononic material devices that exhibit aerodynamically beneficial properties. This work has the potential to inform a new paradigm for passive yet adaptive flow control, enabling flight performance and maneuverability in next-generation UAVs that are imperative to the Air Force.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 21, 2022
- Source ID
- FA95502110182XX0
Entities
People
- Andres Goza
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign