FLEXOP – Application of aeroelastic tailoring to a flying demonstrator wing

This paper presents the application of aeroelastic tailoring in the design of flying demonstrator wings. The work is part of the Flutter Free Flight Envelope eXpansion (FLEXOP) project, funded under the Horizon 2020 framework. The project involves the design, manufacturing and flight-testing of a UAV toward two principle goals: i) to demonstrate...

Post-buckled precompressed (PBP) subsonic micro flight control actuators and surfaces

This paper describes a new class of flight control actuators using Post-Buckled Precompressed (PBP) piezoelectric elements to provide much improved actuator performance. These PBP actuator elements are modeled using basic large deflection Euler-beam estimations accounting for laminated plate effects. The deflection estimations are then coupled...

Post-buckled precompressed (PBP) elements: A new class of flight control actuators enhancing high-speed autonomous VTOL MAVs

This paper describes a new class of flight control actuators using Post-Buckled Precompressed (PBP) piezoelectric elements. These actuators are designed to produce significantly higher deflection and force levels than conventional piezoelectric actuator elements. Classical laminate plate theory (CLPT) models are shown to work very well in...