Parametric Studies for the Aeroelastic Analysis of Multibody Wings

Abstract

Air density on Mars is much lower than that on Earth. To generate sufficient lifting force to fly, Mars-airplanes need to have a larger wing area than Earth-airplanes. The recently developed Mars-airplanes have multibody wings that can be folded and deployed to realize larger wing area and compactness. Aeroelastic analyses of the wings are necessary to avoid catastrophic behaviors, such as flutter or divergence. However, conventional aeroelastic analysis methods cannot be applied to the multibody wing because these wings have mechanical joints for connecting wing bodies, and thus, they differ significantly from conventional wings. In this paper, a new analysis method that can be applied to the multibody wing is explained. The method combines aerodynamics, multibody dynamics theory, and absolute nodal coordinate formulation. By using this method, we simulate the aeroelastic motion of multibody wings. We investigate the changes in aeroelastic motion when we change the number of the wing bodies and the structural parameters.