1000

Kirigami Inspired Honeycomb Wing Box and Flexible Matrix Composite Skin for Micro Air Vehicles
By

Mark Gilbert (For the purpose of the first year PhD review)
Supervisors: Fabrizio Scarpa Giuliano Allegri

Issued: October 2010

1 Introduction
1.1 Micro Air Vehicles
In 1996 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) together with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) funded the research in to the development of a new form of air vehicle known as Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs)[1]. As the name suggests this is a small unmanned aircraft, where the criterion was that its dimensions must be smaller than 15cm, a flight speed of ~15m/s, a range of several kilometres and a mass of ~90g[2]. Initially the main aim of these MAVs was to allow the soldier on the ground to be able to control a vehicle with almost no training and use it within the reconnaissance role. This later extended to civilian use for different environments and building interiors and as the roles extended so did the size requirements with an increased payload so as to incorporate more and more sensor equipment[3]. A number of companies and academic institutions showed an interest in MAVs, which has grown in recent years due to the ease with which they can be adapted for both civil and military uses as well as the increasing role possibilities (Figure 1). MAVs have the ability to be deployed in environments and situations that would otherwise be adverse to humans. They can be equipped with sensors in order to detect hazardous gases or radiation. In the case of the military they have already proven to be invaluable for uses such as reconnaissance, extend range communications and even as guided mortars, if not a combination of all these applications. This is transferred to civilian uses with applications within law enforcement and rescue missions. For example traffic control, Hurricane tracking, mine collapse, crowd management, searching for survivors in a burning or smoke filled room and even as an alternative to CCTV within the inner cities[4].

Figure 1 Possible MAV roles [5]

One downside to the MAV is that due to its small size and the low airspeed it works in low Reynolds flow fields (typically 104 105)[6]. As such the aerodynamics are not as predictable as its larger counterparts due to the viscous forces producing large scale flow separation [7]. The MAV has another flaw in that it is highly susceptible to wind gusts. This is primarily due to the gust velocities being comparable if not greater than the cruise speed of the vehicle itself. It is difficult within these low Reynolds unsteady flow regimes to build a rigid aerofoil that also incorporates a good aerodynamic performance [2]. As the size of these MAVs is increased then this starts to negate some of these problems as well as enhancing their abilities.

1.2 Where composites fit in

Composites lend themselves nicely to the manufacturing of an MAV due to the specifications imposed on weight to payload. They can be used both for the structural framework as well as the covering skin of the wing. There is also the possibility that certain composite structures will also allow the wing to be capable of morphing for either control or due to elastic tailoring a damping system for aeroelastic flutter. It is this control of flutter that forms one of the aims of this study. The wing is constructed with a honeycomb wing box surrounded by an elastomeric based skin material for aerodynamic shaping. The main core is made up of Kevlar sheets formed into an optimised honeycomb core. A variety of skin materials ranging from pure elastomer 10A dragon skin through to a full flexible matrix composite (FMC) of various types is analysed in the first part of the study. Kevlar is chosen as the core material due to its extensive use within the aerospace industry as honeycomb cores in different applications from floor panels through to wing structures. The main advantages to a Kevlar honeycomb is that it is very light weight and has excellent corrosion resistant properties when used with metallic components [8]. Another advantage to the use of composites is in a new emerging field known as Structronics. This is the merging of electronics in to the actual structure rather than attached to it. There has even been studies in the use of carbon nano fibres as flexible batteries [9] which have been printed on to paper although any fibrous material will allow this. This means that the printed circuits and battery can be performed on the sheet of Kevlar pre-processing and then due to the Kirigami technique the circuits stay intact once the core has been fully formed. This again means a drastic reduction of weight due to no added units. Another possibility is adding micro wires in to the composite in order to facilitate the extended range antennae role. The manufacturing technique for the core has been developed and explained within the paper written by Kazuya Saito [10]. In a recent work, the concept of Kirigami construction has been applied to the development of a lightweight cellular Kevlar wing box with high torsional stiffness, and the capability of creating embedded hinges within the structure during the manufacturing process with no added components. This Kirigami-oriented concept is a promising step towards the manufacturing of adaptive wing structures. It allows the production of wing core structures with little or no post production machining. The process can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Kirigami manufacturing process[10]

1.3 Optimisation Technique

Initially the study looks at a static loading on the wing at the wing tip in torsion. This allows the variation of parameters such as skin thickness, internal cell angle of the honeycomb and change in skin materials. Results of these tests then allow the comparison and optimisation of the wing from a static point of view. However the wing is designed to be used within flight and as such it is important that the wing is also tested under aerodynamic load conditions. Normally this is carried out in the cruise conditions as this is where the wing spends most of its working life span. Leading on to this a Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis is performed. The wing geometry is fed in to the aerodynamic analysis and the resultant pressure distribution is then fed back to the structure as a load. This process is repeated until divergence within a loop. The loop in this case is taken from Ansys v11 and fed through to XFoil. The control of the loop and input of all required variables is carried out via Matlab. This process is shown in Figure 3

Figure 3 Fluid-Structure Interaction analysis loop

2 Methodology
2.1 Geometry
The Geometry is designed using Ansys v11.0 where the coordinates for the NACA 2415 aerofoil produce the initial key points for the core at spacing, . A second set of key points are then produced with an offset depending on the required internal cell angle of the honeycomb, and at a distance in the span wise direction depending on . Lines and areas are added, which creates one half of the cell. This is then mirrored along the chord to create the full cell. This pattern is then repeated the required number of times in order to produce the full span aerofoil core. This process can be seen in Figure 4. The negative values for are restricted so as to avoid the internal vertex of the cell staying in contact during deformation and are decided by the equation ( ) ,where is the cell aspect ratio[11]. For the purpose of this study an was chosen giving the possible values of of . This creates a triangular core cell so a more realistic range for is taken as between -20 and 50.

b d

f
Figure 4 Formation of the geometry (a) initial aerofoil keypoints (b) diagonal areas with offset (c) half hexagon core (d) first complete row (e) pattern repeated to create full core (f) final wing with skin added

2.2 Core properties

The core material is assumed to be isotropic for the purpose of and . The material values for the woven Kevlar core are taken from Saito et al. (2011) [10]. These values are Youngs modulus , Poissons ratio and density of .

2.3 Skin properties

The initial skin material is also kept the same as that used by Saito et al. (2011) [10], which was dragon skin shore 10A elastomer only with the mechanical property values of and taken from G Murray et al (2010). After this the elastomer was reinforced creating a Flexible Matrix Composite (FMC) made from glass fibres surrounded by the dragon skin shore 10A elastomeric matrix. This elastomer is very good due to its ability to flex and stretch with a high resistance to tearing or distortion. The FMC tested by Murray et al. (2010) [12] was manufactured with fibres, which changed the skin material properties to and

2.4 Parametric Study

The first part of the study focuses on a parametric analysis of the wing design. The parameters to be altered are the cell internal angle ), thickness of the skin and skin material type. The program is made up from macros in Ansys that allowed for changes to be implemented easily. Materials and geometry are stored in separate files, where the parameters are altered within a loop in the case of and thickness of skin material.

2.5 Meshing
The model is meshed using shell elements with the Shell91 option within Ansys. The advantage to this is that they are design to model thin structures and Shell91 is more efficient than other options when there are less than 3 layers used in the model. The results are taken from the mid-plane allowing for best results in this analysis. Shell91 has quadrilateral elements where the size is taken as 1/4 of the oblique wall and has 6 degrees of freedom, 3 translational and 3 rotational. Further possibilities are the use of 3D meshing using mesh 200 within Ansys. The mesh is constantly changing and therefore re-meshing is occurring with every iterative loop, especially when the FSI is to be carried out.

2.6 Analysis Torsional

The torsional analysis is carried out purely within Ansys with the use of macros for the individual aspects such as core, skin, materials, meshing and solution. This allows the altering of individual parameters with ease. The macros are then controlled by the MAIN program. A loop is set up within the MAIN program so as to allow the automatic alteration of the desired parameter. The main parameter being altered in this study is the internal cell angle of the honeycomb structure. The Boundary conditions are set up so that the root of the wing is fully restrained. The wing tip end is free to rotate in the z-plane (wingspan axis) and is tied to a central point, where a unit torque is then applied. The solution phase then analyses the geometry and solves the linear static equations in order to obtain the resulting rotation, . The torsional gradient is then calculated using Equation 1 and Equation 2, where is the span of the wing box. Once calculated the torsional stiffness can be calculated using Equation 3
Equation 1

Equation 2

Equation 3

The Ansys macros also have the ability to store the information required to calculate the sheer centre. This is then calculated within Matlab and plotted with the profile. The equations to calculate are shown below (Equation 4 and Equation 5)

Equation 4

Equation 5

2.7 Fluid-Structure Interaction

This analysis is carried out using three main programs. Two programs are used for the analysis and then one purely to control the loop. In this study the structural analysis is carried out again with Ansys v11. The aerodynamic analysis in order to get the pressure distribution is then carried out using XFoil. XFoil was developed by Mark Drela at MIT in order to analyse subsonic aerofoils

giving lift, drag and pressure distributions formulated by a number of input parameters, which can be entered as a single text file. The controlling program used in this study is Matlab. A default set of input parameters are set up within the program, however Matlab initially asks the user if any of these are to be altered, i.e. the internal cell angle of the honeycomb. Once entered this is stored as a MAC file, which can be called up in Ansys to load the desired variables. Once ready to run the initial geometry Matlab then runs Ansys within batch mode. The program then takes the coordinates of the skin nodes at z-max (wing tip) and within Matlab rearranges these coordinates so that it can be read by XFoil. The input variables for XFoil are stored as a DAT file and then Matlab runs XFoil using the DAT file as the input, which has within it the function that stores the corresponding x, y and Cp values. Another macro is used within Matlab which will transform the x and y coordinates of the wing in to a theta value. This means that the wing can be mapped and although the Cp is for a specific node any coordinate on the wing surface can be mapped. This means that the pressure for any given point can be deduced using a polynomial interpolation. This can then be fed back on to the wing geometry as a load distribution across the nodes and the analysis re-run with the pressure. This can then be looped for an FSI analysis.

3 Results
3.1 Pure elastomer skin
Figure 5 shows the shear centre results for all values of internal core cell angles ( ). There is however one data point that is outside of the profile so should be investigated as to why.

Figure 5 Sheer centre depending on Theta

Figure 6 GJ against theta

Figure 7 Torsional result for theta=-20

Figure 8 Torsional result theta=0

Figure 9 Torsional result with theta=30

4 Further work
4.1 Change the skin to a flexible matrix composite
The skin tested so far has a skin which is a pure elastomer and therefore very little structural advantage. The next step is to analyse the same static parameters, but with a reinforced elastomer skin. The paper by Murray et al. [12] uses glass fibres within the 10A elastomer already tested with a layup of . Other systems have been looked at by Yigin Chen (supervised by Dr. Fabrizio Scarpa) with varying fibre angles

4.2 Carry out hand calculations to back up the results found so far with the FMC
Due to some unexpected results so far there is a necessity for the hand calculations to be performed for the wing with FMC skin. This will also aid in the verification of the computer analysis

4.3 Finish the programming and then perform FSI on a flexible matrix composite skin
The program within Matlab is nearly finished for an automated loop analysis controlling both Ansys and XFoil. This needs to be completed and then the analysis performed prior to the manufacturing of the test wing

4.4 Manufacture a test wing for wind tunnel testing

This was the main aspect of the original PhD and as such an important milestone to get to. The manufacturing involves the new Kirigami technique and some interesting ideas for skin manufacturing has arisen with supervisor meetings. Wind tunnel testing is to be carried out prior to actual flight testing

4.5 Attach trial wing to model aircraft and integrate sensors to perform in flight testing.
Probably the most interesting part of the program is the actual flight testing of the wing. As the whole MAV idea incorporates the adding of sensors this time the sensors will be there to monitor the wing itself. This data can then be either transmitted back or stored on an internal device. This is all dependent on weight and availability.

5 References
1. Mueller, T.J., et al., Overview of Micro-Air-Vehicle Development, in Introduction to the Design of Fixed-Wing Micro Air Vehicles Including Three Case Studies. 2007, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. p. 1-38. Levin, O. and W. Shyy, Optimization of a low Reynolds number airfoil with flexible membrane. Cmes-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, 2001. 2(4): p. 523-536. Hirschberg, M., DARPA's Legacy Takes Flight: Contributions to Aeronautics, in DARPA: 50 Years of Bridging the Gap, U.S.D.A.R.P. Agency and U.S.D.o.D.O.o.t.S.o. Defense, Editors. 2008, Faircount LLC. p. 134-151. Petricca, L., P. Ohlckers, and C. Grinde, Micro- and Nano-Air Vehicles: State of the Art. International Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 2011. 2011. Francis, M.S., Col . Advanced Unmanned Vehicle Systems. 1996 [cited 2012 05 December]; Available from: http://www.uadrones.net/military/research/1996/0523.htm. Mueller, T.J., Introduction to the Design of Fixed-Wing Micro Air Vehicles: Including Three Case Studies. 2007: Eurospan Group. Torres, G. and T.J. Mueller, Micro aerial vehicle development: design, components, fabrication, and flight-testing, in AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2000 Symposium and Exhibition. 2000: Orlando, FL. DuPont. More Durable Aerospace, Marine, and Rail Equipment. Aerospace, Marine, & Rail 2012 [cited 2012 26 November]. Pushparaj, V.L., et al., Flexible energy storage devices based on nanocomposite paper. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007. 104(34): p. 13574-13577. Saito, K., F. Agnese, and F. Scarpa, A Cellular Kirigami Morphing Wingbox Concept. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 2011. 22(9): p. 935-944. Scarpa, F., P. Panayiotou, and G. Tomlinson, Numerical and experimental uniaxial loading on in-plane auxetic honeycombs. The Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design, 2000. 35(5): p. 383-388. Murray, G., F. Gandhi, and C. Bakis, Flexible Matrix Composite Skins for One-dimensional Wing Morphing. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 2010. 21(17): p. 1771-1781.

2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

10

Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation & Science University of Bristol Queens Building University Walk Bristol BS8 1TR United Kingdom Tel:- +44 (0)117 33 15311 Fax:- +44 (0)117 954 5666 composites-centre@bristol.ac.uk www.bris.ac.uk/composites

www.bris.ac.uk/composites