Effectiveness of Wing Twist Morphing in Roll Control

This paper is focused on numerical investigations that analyze the advantages obtained from high-aspect-ratio wingswithunconventionalrollcontrolstrategiesbasedonwingtwistmorphing.ThesailplaneG103-B,produced by the GROB Werke company, was chosen as the reference aircraft for the analyses. For confidentiality reasons, the datadisclosedbythe buildercovered only general properties suchas themain dimensions, the liftingsurface airfoils and attitudes, the characteristic speeds, and a rough mass budget. As a consequence of this, “reverse-engineering” wasconsiderednecessarytodefineareasonablewingstructurallayoutthatenabledtheanalysisoftheelastic-aircraft rolldynamics.ApreliminarysizingofthewingstructurewasaddressedusingCS-22airworthinessrequirementsand by adopting fast elementary approaches. The estimated structural arrangement, which was verified using a finite element analysis, was then used to generate the aircraft aeroelastic model. The conventional (aileron-based) and the unconventional (wing twist morphing) roll control strategies were compared from the aerodynamic and the aeroelastic standpoints, and the benefits achieved with the unconventional strategy are summarized.