Initial Investigation of Chordwise Flexible Flat Aerofoil

The size of small Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) makes them susceptible to gusts, hence
an evaluation of their aeroelastic performance is a necessary requirement. With advances
in materials, new aircraft are ever lighter and more flexible, both in the span-wise and
chord-wise direction. An experiment is set up to evaluate the aeroelastic performance of a
2D chord-wise aerofoil structure under gust loading, where the wing of a small Unmanned
Air Vehicle (UAV) is considered by coupling a Finite Element (FE) structural model with
a Doublet-Lattice Method (DLM) aerodynamic model; a new semi-analytical modelling
approach is also described. The flexible aerofoil structure is then optimised by means
of a genetic algorithm (GA) framework for the minimum weight, subject to aeroelastic
constraints of flutter, divergence and structural displacement.