Modeling and experimental verification of a piezoelectric actuated flexible wing for Morphing and structural control

Abstract

Smart materials have been widely investigated by different research groups over the last ten years. They have been employed as sensors or actuators, as well as their combined applications, for vibration control, and most recently, energy harvesting problems. Among the different smart materials, the piezoelectric one has received most attention. They can be employed as sensors or actuators, simultaneously or separately, can be easily installed, have large bandwidth as well as are commercially available in different sizes. The researches related to smart materials have lead to relevant improvements in the aeronautical engineering field. In particular, smart materials have been used in bio-inspired structures that include the combination of active and optimized shape control (morphing wings), flapping wings, and control of structural properties in order to improve the aeroelastic behavior of a structure. Piezoelectric materials are used as actuators in the previous cited cases. The literature shows that the linear piezoelectric constitutive relation has been employed in actuation problems. However, the recent literature also shows that the manifestation of nonlinearities in piezoelectric actuation problems has not been properly considered. The goal in this project is the electroelastic modeling of a flexible wing with piezoelectric actuators for morphing, flapping and control of elastic properties. A nonlinear finite element model will be presented in order to obtain the governing equations. However, the nonlinear behavior of the piezoelectric material will be considered by adding additional nonlinear terms in the piezoelectric constitutive equation. The unsteady aerodynamics will be modeled with the vortex particle method. The resulting numeric model is an important contribution for a more accurate representation of electroaeroelastic systems. The numerical electroelastic and eletroaeroelastic results will be experimentally verified. (AU)