TY - GEN
T1 - Contact-aided compliant mechanisms for morphing aircraft skin
AU - Mehta, Vipul
AU - Frecker, Mary
AU - Lesieutre, George
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - Sandwich structures consisting of contact-aided compliant mechanisms are presented for morphing aircraft skin. A contact mechanism is used to alleviate stresses and to decrease the oul-of-plane deflection. A methodology to design such mechanisms, which takes into account the aerodynamic loads, is presented. The method is applied to a small UAV and results are compared with those of honeycomb structures in terms of structural mass, global strain and maximum stresses. Different material models such as linearly elastic and multi-linear elastic are considered. For linearly elastic materials, contact-induced stress-relief is advantageous and for nonlinear elastic materials, reduction of transverse deflection due to contact is useful. In either ease, the structural mass of the contact-aided structures is less than that of the corresponding non-contact structures.
AB - Sandwich structures consisting of contact-aided compliant mechanisms are presented for morphing aircraft skin. A contact mechanism is used to alleviate stresses and to decrease the oul-of-plane deflection. A methodology to design such mechanisms, which takes into account the aerodynamic loads, is presented. The method is applied to a small UAV and results are compared with those of honeycomb structures in terms of structural mass, global strain and maximum stresses. Different material models such as linearly elastic and multi-linear elastic are considered. For linearly elastic materials, contact-induced stress-relief is advantageous and for nonlinear elastic materials, reduction of transverse deflection due to contact is useful. In either ease, the structural mass of the contact-aided structures is less than that of the corresponding non-contact structures.
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U2 - 10.1117/12.773599
DO - 10.1117/12.773599
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:44349127382
SN - 9780819471123
T3 - Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
BT - Modeling, Signal Processing, and Control for Smart Structures 2008
T2 - Modeling, Signal Processing, and Control for Smart Structures 2008
Y2 - 10 March 2008 through 12 March 2008
ER -