Active aeroelastic control of aircraft wings with piezo-composite

Active control of swept smart aircraft wings in an incompressible flow are examined. The wing structure is modeled as a composite thin-walled beam featuring fiber-reinforced host structure and piezo-composite actuators. The nonclassical effects, such as twist-bending elastic coupling, warping inhibition, transverse shear and rotatory inertia are incorporated. The unsteady incompressible aerodynamics are derived based on the concept of indicial functions, applicable to arbitrary small motion in the time domain. The influence of directionality property both of the host structure and piezo-actuators on improving aeroelastic performance are specifically investigated. The potential for active aeroelastic control via the actuation couplings due to the anisotropic piezoelectric properties is highlighted. A number of conclusions are outlined at the end.