RWDC

Background Discussion
Harold Youngren
AeroCraft
129 Pitt St
Portland, ME
207-671-7350 cell 207-871-0552
harold.youngren@gmail.com

AeroCraft
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Background
Aerospace engineer (MIT, Lockheed-Martin, consultant)
Work on design of aircraft, wings, propellers, helicopters, CFD, aeroelastic analysis

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RWDC Background Talk
Overview of design problem (how the pieces relate)
Aero
Structure
Aeroelastic
Optimization

Wing aerodynamics
lift, drag as they affect wings
airfoils and compressible drag
vortex drag due to lift
drag reduction approaches for wing

Structure
basic info on materials
beams and torsion boxes
wing structures, examples of likely wing structures

Aeroelasticity what this is, static aeroelastics vs flutter

static deflection with load mass distribution
flutter
how to design a wing to eliminate flutter

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RWDC Key Design Issues
Overall Problem
Focus is transonic airliner wing with specified flight conditions and load
Metric (objective function) for wing optimization driven by weight and drag
Design for cruise metric and max loading condition at 3.75g

Aerodynamics -> lift and drag

Challenging operating point (Mach=0.7, CL~0.7) will involve transonic effects
Lift must support the aircraft weight
Design to reduce drag rise using combination of sweep and airfoil selection or thickness

Structure -> weight

Structure must be optimized for high load condition (avoid static divergence)
Minimize weight for objective function metric
Flutter free to max velocity (mostly involves control of stiffness and mass centers)

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RWDC - Resources
Aircraft Design Resources
Online material on aircraft design (free!)
Aircraft Design, Synthesis and Analysis http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/AircraftDesign.html

Aerodynamics Design Resources

Online aero design textbook (free!)
http://www.desktop.aero/appliedaero/preface/welcome.html
Somewhat aircraft design oriented, but has technical focus
Very good introduction for aerodynamics with lots of background, plots, examples
Discussion of background issues for wing, airfoil design

Structural Design Resources

Limited simple resources
Online beam calculation http://www.engapplets.vt.edu/statics/BeamView/BeamView.html
Online structural mechanics material http://web.mst.edu/~mecmovie/

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RWDC Aero Flight Conditions

Flight condition nomenclature

Altitude - sets temperature (T), density (), pressure (p),
speed of sound (a)
Speed = V
Mach number, M = V/a = ratio of speed to speed of sound
Dynamic pressure, q = * * V2, is pressure of
oncoming wind

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RWDC Aero Aircraft Nomenclature

Aircraft nomenclature
Wingspan
Leading edge (LE)
Trailing edge (TE)
LE sweep
Root chord, tip chord
chord sweep
Dihedral

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RWDC Aero Wing Nomenclature

Wing outer mold line (outer

shape) specified by:
Span
Chord (root, tip)
Sweep
Taper
Dihedral
Airfoils and twist

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RWDC Aero - Airfoils
Airfoil nomenclature
Chord length
Leading edge
Trailing edge
Thickness
Camber
Angle of attack

Airfoils come in
thousands of shapes for
special purposes

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RWDC Aero Airfoil Forces

Airfoils refer to the 2D sections of a wing

Airfoil Force Nomenclature

CL = lift coefficient
CD = drag coefficient
CM = pitching moment coefficient
Angle of attack = determines forces CL,CD,CM
Characteristics are also a function of Mach number and
other factors to a smaller degree

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RWDC Aero Airfoil Aerodynamics

Airfoil aerodynamics
Lift (CL) is linearly proportional to
angle of attack (CL~2*with lift
slope Cl=2until stall
Drag (CD) is low up until stall
Moment (CM) about chord is
nearly constant

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RWDC Aero Airfoil Aerodynamics

Airfoil drag comes from three

sources:
Viscous drag CDv
Pressure drag CDp
Compressible drag CDc
Viscous and pressure drag lumped
into CDo

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RWDC Aero - Airfoil Transonic Drag Rise

Airfoils develop strong shock waves with increasing

speed (NACA 0012 12% thick airfoil shown)

Mach 0.6 Mach 0.7 Mach 0.8

Strong Shock
Shock Wave
Wave

Higher drag

Pressure indicated by color

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RWDC Aero - Airfoil Compressible Drag

Airfoil drag increases rapidly beyond critical Mach

number, Mcrit~0.65 for this airfoil

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RWDC Aero - Wing Transonic Drag Rise

Optimized wing at
transonic speed
operates with
(mild) shock wave

Thicker airfoils Drag Rise

and/or higher lift

increase shock
strength and drag

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RWDC Aero Wing Aerodyamics
Wings characteristics
include lift, drag and
moment (about aircraft
CG)

Wing drag includes airfoil

drag across wing
Airfoil section drag
Cdv+Cdp+Cdc

Induced drag Cdi

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RWDC Aero Wing Aerodyamics
Induced drag is a
function of loading of
wing along span
Loading goes to zero at tips

Optimal spanloading is
elliptical (minimum Cdi)
Small changes from
elliptical loading possible
without excessive penalty

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RWDC Aero Wing Spanwise Load Distribution

Wing loads are Lower outboard loading and root

bending moment with tip wash-out
modified by airfoil
incidence angles
Tip wash-out decreases
outboard loading
Lower outboard loading Wing angle adjusted for
reduces high bending constant total lift

moments at wing root

Tip wash-in (higher incidence) Tip wash-out (lower incidence)

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RWDC Structure Example Wing Structure
RWDC rules specify wing
box for structural elements
(mid-chord region of wing)

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RWDC Structure Wing Box
Wing box is key element of structural
design, also holds fuel mass

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RWDC Structure Wing Box Layout
Wing box is made up of:
Skin
Spars (spar cap + web)
Stringers
Ribs

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RWDC Structure Basic Loads
Loads are forces applied to
structure

Loads take three main forms:

Tension (pulling)
Compression (pushing)
Shear (sideways forces)
Torsion (another shear force)

Materials are measured and

specified with respect to
these three loadings

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RWDC Structure Aero Loads
Loads on wing consist
primarily of:
Lift loads
Torsion loads
Inertial loads or gravity (weight)

Key focus in design is

controlling the spanwise
loading of the wing with
incidence angles of the airfoil
sections

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RWDC Structure Beams
Beams resist bending
and shear forces
Caps resist bending by
tension and compression
Webs resist shear forces
from side loads and
bending
I beam shape comes from
large caps needed to resist
bending of long, slender
wings

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RWDC Structure Elastic Axis
Beams have a natural axis
for bending without twist
the elastic axis
Forces applied at the elastic axis
will not twist the beam

Forces applied away from

the elastic axis will cause the
beam to twist
Aerodynamic forces act at AC
Inertial forces (due to
acceleration at at CG

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RWDC Structure Material Properties
Materials have strength
properties specified by
stress (force/unit area)
and strain (relative
change in size or length)
Modulus springiness of
material (how much it
moves with applied stress)
Yield stress (when material
starts to fail)
Ultimate stress (failure and
beyond)

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RWDC Structure Materials
Materials list for RWDC (gives material properties)

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RWDC Structure Material Properties
Materials for RWDC include knocked down properties for strength
Aluminum (traditional aerospace material, also lists steel, titanium)
Glass/epoxy <- small improvement from aluminum
Carbon/epoxy <- best overall for weight and strength
Kevlar/epoxy <- good in tension, poor in compression

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RWDC Structure Composite Materials
Composites (carbon, glass,
kevlar)
Fibers embedded as layers in
epoxy matrix
Can be tailored by fiber orientation

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RWDC Structure Finite Element Analysis
Structure is analyzed with
finite elements using
NASTRAN (or similar)
computer code
Requires division of structure
into small bricks or plates or
rods
Each element is assigned
properties (material,
thickness, etc)
Computer solves for stresses
in elements so that designer
can check to ensure that
stresses do not exceed
material limits

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 RWDC Optimization

Optimization for wing design seeks best solution for

weight and drag using objective function that blends
these to produce a psuedo weight number

OF = [145,360 + Wwing ] + 19 * q * S * [ 0.01819 + CDwing ]

Where q = 162.92 lb/ft^2, and S = 1,400 ft^2

Weight of wing strongly driven by sweep, airfoil thickness and

loading (airfoil incidence)

Drag of wing driven by sweep, thickness at specified Mach 0.7

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RWDC Optimization Objective Function Space

Optimization by changing
design parameters to find
lower OF values in design
space
Direction from gradient search or
steepest descent
Design space may not be as simple
as this, it have local minima!!!

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RWDC Optimization - Wing Design Parameters

Key wing design

parameters
Sweep (more sweep
reduces effective Mach
number)
Airfoil thickness (thicker
wing is lighter)
RWDC rules specify:
Structural stiffness for
bending and torsion Span
Area
(tailors twist under load to Taper Ratio (tip chord/root chord)
shift loading inboard and Dihedral
Material properties
reduce structural weight)

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RWDC Aeroelastics Background
Aeroelastic effects are static (aerostatic) or dynamic (flutter)

Aerostatic deflections are due to airloads deflecting the

structure in bending and twist
Changes to structural shape (particularly twist) will change airloads
Predicting aerostatic deflections may require iteration of aero loads
analysis and structural analysis

Flutter is a dynamic instability where the airloads force motions

of the structure that grow with time
Indicated by dynamic analysis of aero/mass/structural system (one or
more characteristic roots go unstable)
Flutter is almost always destructive and is avoided by design

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RWDC Aeroelastics Aerostatic Divergence
Example of aerostatics - NASA
HELIOS Solar Airplane
Very flexible structure

Encounter with gust drastically

deflected wing upwards leading to
NASA Helios Solar Airplane (2003) failure of flight control system (was
not designed to cope with highly
bent wing)

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RWDC Aeroelastics Aerostatic Divergence
NASA HELIOS Solar Airplane

Gust caused tips to rise over 50 ft (increasing dihedral) leading

to loss of control and catastrophic overload of structure

Gust raised wingtips 50 and twisted wing

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RWDC Aeroelastics Flutter

Flutter of swept flying wing

Unstable pitching and bending motions of wing at critical
speed
Torsion no involved with this flutter (unusual)

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 RWDC Aeroelastics Flutter
Flutter is found by examining
behavior of dynamic system
Root locus shows behavior of
system roots (characteristic
modes, such as wing 1st bending)
as velocity of aircraft is increased
When complex root crosses real
axis then system becomes
unstable
Modal analysis like this done by
NASTRAN using structural FEM
and mass distribution with
unsteady airloads from ZAERO

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 RWDC Aeroelastics Flutter
Wing flutter can be cured (delayed) by:

Increasing wing stiffness (adds weight)

This could mean increasing bending stiffness and/or torsional
stiffness

Moving mass center closer to or forward of the elastic axis

Moving elastic axis of the wing closer to the mass centers

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RWDC Aero Blank Slide

Blank slide

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