An aero-structural design and analysis study of a telescopic wing with a conformal camber morphing capability is presented. An aerodynamic analysis of a telescoping wing, first with a high speed airfoil followed by an analysis with a low speed airfoil is performed. The data obtained from these analyses is used to determine the optimum polar curves for drag reduction at different speeds. This information in turn provided the background for devising an optimal morphing strategy for drag reduction assuming that the telescoping wing airfoil has the capability to step morph between the high and low speed airfoils. Next, a conformal camber morphing concept is introduced. The concept is based on a non-uniform thickness distribution along the chord of a wing shell section that deforms from a symmetrical airfoil shape into a cambered airfoil shape under actuation. Structural optimization based on finite element models is used to obtain the shell thickness distribution for minimum shell section weight and best airfoil shape adjustment. Finally, a comparison study between the performance of an aircraft equipped with a morphing wing (telescopic wing combined with conformal camber morphing) and the performance of the same aircraft equipped with an optimized fixed wing for 30 m/s cruise speed and 100 N weight is presented. Aerodynamic optimization based on computational fluid dynamics models is used for the optimum fixed wing geometric parameters calculations. The optimal wing configurations for various performance parameters are calculated. The morphing wing generally outperforms the optimum fixed wing with the exception of a 10% reduction in rate of climb and 4% drag penalty at 30 m/s cruise speed.

Recently, innovative aircraft designs were proposed to improve aerodynamic performance. Examples include high aspect ratio wings to reduce the aerodynamic induced drag to achieve lower fuel consumption. Such solution when combined with a lightweight structure may lead to aeroelastic instabilities such as flutter at lower air speeds compared to more conventional wing designs. Therefore, in order to ensure safe flight operation, it is important to study the aeroelastic behavior of the wing throughout the flight envelope. This can be achieved by either experimental or computational work. Experimental wind tunnel and scaled flight test models need to exhibit similar aeroelastic behavior to the full scale air vehicle. In this paper, three different aeroelastic scaling strategies are formulated and applied to a flexible high aspect-ratio wing. These scaling strategies are first evaluated in terms of their ability to generate reduced models with the intended representations of the aerodynamic, structural and inertial characteristics. Next, they are assessed in terms of their potential in representing the unsteady non-linear aeroelastic behavior in three different flight conditions. The scaled models engineered by exactly scaling down the internal structure suitably represent the intended aeroelastic behavior and allow the performance assessment for the entire flight envelope. However, since both the flight and wind tunnel models are constrained by physical and budgetary limitations, custom built structural models are more likely to be selected. However, the latter ones are less promising to study the entire flight envelope.