Pressure adaptive honeycomb

Abstract

A new type of adaptive structure is presented that relies on pressurized honeycomb cells that extent a significant length with respect to the plane of the hexagons. By varying the pressure inside each of the cells, the stiffness can be altered. A variable stiffness in combination with an externally applied force field results in a fully embedded pressure adaptive actuator that can yield strains well beyond the state-of-the-art in adaptive materials. The stiffness change as a function of the pressure is modeled by assigning an equivalent material stiffness to the honeycomb walls that accounts for both the inherent material stiffness as the pressure-induced stiffness. A finite element analysis of a beam structure that relies on this model is shown to correlate well to experimental results of a three-point bend test. To demonstrate the concept of embedded pressure adaptive honeycomb, an wind tunnel test article with adaptive flap has been constructed and tested in a low speed wind tunnel. It has been proven that by varying the cell pressure the flap changed its geometry and subsequently altered the lift coefficient.