Morphing airfoil
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force
InventorsJared Neely, James Joo
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure defines a morphing airfoil having a dynamic flexible skin system that is capable of carrying high level aerodynamic (or fluid) pressure loads over a structural surface. The structural surface can morph and deflect in response to control inputs to change a lift force without separate movable control surfaces. The anisotropic skin is attached to underlying structure that is both actively controlled and passively supported. A control system causes the underlying support structure to move to a desired location which in turn causes the skin to bend and/or flex without exceeding a stress threshold and thus vary the lift profile along a span of the airfoil.
Claims6
A morphing structure comprising:
- an underlying structure having actively controlled elements and passive elements;
- a non-stretchable flexible skin having an inner surface and an outer surface connected to the underlying structure to form an airfoil with a pressure side surface and a suction side surface;
- a control system operable to change the camber of the airfoil;
- wherein the actively controlled elements extend forward of a spar toward a leading edge and back toward the trailing edge of the airfoil to control the camber of the flexible skin;
- wherein the actively controlled elements include a compliant mechanism having a plurality of vertical compliant flexible legs spaced apart from one another and configured to permit a lower surface of an actuator rib to move relative to an upper surface of the actuator rib;
- wherein the passively controlled elements extend from the spar back to the trailing edge of the airfoil and are positioned between the actively controlled elements;
- and
- wherein the flexible skin controls the camber shape of the passive elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.