FlexFlight Project
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Nonlinear Flexibility Effects on Flight Dynamics and Control of Next-Generation Aircraft
Da Ronch, A., Tantaroudas, N.D., and Badcock, K.J. (University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K.)
Simpson, R., Wang, T., Wynn, A., Hesse, H., and Palacios, R.N. (Imperial College, London, U.K.)
Goulart, P. (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland)
Airbus UK, BAE Systems, DSTL, QinetiQ
UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Very Flexible Aircraft
UAV configuration - pressure coefficient distribution computed using the CFD solver of the University of Liverpool.
Flexible multi-beam configuration subject to a set of follower and dead loads to investigate the coupling effect of structural and rigid-body dynamics due to large gyroscopic motion.
Flight dynamics response of a HALE UAV configuration following an initial roll perturbation to demonstrate the effect of flexibility on the aircraft stability characteristics: unstable rigid aircraft (blue) compared to a very flexible stable configuration (red).
Geometrically-nonlinear deformations of a HALE UAV configuration for varying follower distributed load on wing and tail.