Continuous Dynamic Simulation for Morphing Wing Aeroelasticity

The morphing of an air vehicle is to change its shape and size substantially during flight. Thus, the morphing vehicle is to achieve a broader range of operational modes, all of which will maximize the vehicle performance throughout its mission profile. The dream of human flight has been to mimic birds or insect flights in similar manner since the days of Leonardo da Vinci. Our current aeronautical technology brings us closer to such a feat by vehicle morphing. This is evidenced by the ongoing DARPA contracts on designs of a Sliding-skin concept (in-plane morph) and a Folding wing concept (out-of-plane morph). [1-4]. However, the R&D of its engineering design/analysis methodology appears to be lagging behind. One such important methodology is the computational capability to assess the flight dynamics and aeroelastic instability, or stability, of a morphing vehicle during the course of its morphing motion.