Soon, the U.S. Army will be able to deploy autonomous air vehicles that can change shape during flight, according to new research presented at the AIAA Aviation Forum and Exposition’s virtual event June 16.
Researchers with the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory and Texas A&M University published findings of a two-year study in fluid-structure interaction. Their research led to a tool, which will be able to rapidly optimize the structural configuration for Future Vertical Lift vehicles while properly accounting for the interaction between air and the structure.
Within the next year, this tool will be used to develop and rapidly optimize Future Vertical Lift vehicles capable of changing shape during flight, thereby optimizing performance of the vehicle through different phases of flight.
“Consider an [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] mission where the vehicle needs to get quickly to station, or dash, and then attempt to stay on station for as long as possible, or loiter,” said Dr. Francis Phillips, an aerospace engineer at the laboratory. “During dash segments, short wings are desirable in order to go fast and be more maneuverable, but for loiter segments, long wings are desirable in order to enable low power, high endurance flight.”
This tool will enable the structural optimization of a vehicle capable of such morphing while accounting for the deformation of the wings due to the fluid-structure interaction, he said.
One concern with morphing vehicles is striking a balance between sufficient bending stiffness and softness to enable to morphing,” Phillips said. “If the wing bends too much, then the theoretical benefits of the morphing could be negated and also could lead to control issues and instabilities.”
Fluid-structure interaction analyses typically require coupling between a fluid and a structural solver.
This, in turn, means that the computational cost for these analyses can be very high – in the range of about 10,000s core hours – for a single fluid and structural configuration.
To overcome these challenges, researchers developed a process that decouples the fluid and structural solvers, which can reduce the computational cost for a single run by as much as 80 percent, Phillips said.
The analysis of additional structural configurations can also be performed without re-analyzing the fluid due to this decoupled approach, which in turn generates additional computational cost savings, leading to multiple orders of magnitude reductions in computational cost when considering this method within an optimization framework.
Ultimately, this means the Army could design multi-functional Future Vertical Lift vehicles much more quickly than through the use of current techniques, he said.
For the past 20 years, there have been advances in research in morphing aerial vehicles but what makes the Army’s studies different is its look at the fluid-structure interaction during vehicle design and structural optimization instead of designing a vehicle first and then seeing what the fluid-structure interaction behavior will be.
“This research will have a direct impact on the ability to generate vehicles for the future warfighter,” Phillips said. “By reducing the computational cost for fluid-structure interaction analysis, structural optimization of future vertical lift vehicles can be accomplished in a much shorter time-frame.”
According to Phillips, when implemented within an optimization framework and coupled with additive manufacturing, the future warfighter will be able to use this tool to manufacture optimized custom air vehicles for mission specific uses.
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Future Vertical Lift vehicles
- US Air Force’s ‘flying car’ coming to an exercise near you
This year, the service is bringing these “flying cars” to more exercises and ... sometimes it might require transformative vertical lift because those airfields that need to be moved may ...
- US Air Force’s ‘flying car’ coming to an exercise near you
This year, the service is bringing these “flying cars” to more exercises and demonstrations ... “Moving parts in a base around quickly, sometimes it might require transformative vertical lift because ...
- Taco Bell's Futuristic Drive-Thru Restaurant Uses Tiny Elevators to Deliver Your Meal
What would the drive-thru of the future look like ... are dedicated to pickup orders, dropped to cars via a cylindrical "proprietary vertical lift." To create these lifts, Taco Bell and franchise ...
- Army’s Future Vertical Lift Competition Could Have A Devastating Impact On The Industrial Base
As part of its Future Vertical Lift modernization program, the service will select the successor to its ubiquitous UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. The Army refers to the successor as a “future long-range ...
- See Taco Bell's new floating restaurant that delivers tacos from the sky
Customers will notice that the kitchen is on top of the two-story building and orders are delivered via a "vertical lift" to their cars ... Taco Bell Defy is the future." Another advantage ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Future Vertical Lift vehicles
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Morphing aerial vehicles
- 4D Composite Printing Creates Shape-Shifting Drone Wing
Novel process allows for the design of experimental technology to replace the parts commonly used in small-to-medium-sized UAVs.
- An approach to produce elaborate flying maneuvers using morphing-wing drones
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are already widely used in various real-world settings, including the film industry, the military, and the transport sector. In the future, they could also ...
- Disneyland explores ways to use aerial drones in nighttime spectaculars
The potential use of drones by the Disneyland entertainment department remains very much in the “blue sky” phase of development.
- The Most Stunning Rolls-Royce Models (and 2 Duds)
The Silver Ghost earned a gold medal — and quickly became famous as the vehicle of choice for monarchs and gangsters alike. According to GQ, Enoch “Nucky” Johnson of “Boardwalk Empire ...
- 'The whole world' is racing to buy the drones that have helped Ukrainians obliterate Russian tanks and missile launchers, their designer says
Turkish firm Baykar Technologies designed tge aerial weapon, which launches laser ... systems and advanced artillery systems and armored vehicles," said Bakyraktar, whose father Ozdemir Bayraktar ...
