Structural Analysis Of Shape-Morphing Aircraft Slat By Using Finite Element Analysis

The changing of the wing shapes on an aircraft always amazes many people especially those in the flights. The field of shape morphing aircraft has attracted the attention of many research groups during the past century. Although many interesting concepts have been synthesized, only a handful involves the shape morphing slat for aircraft wing. The aerodynamic pressure of the morphing slat structure could lead to failure or structural damage, probably stemming from the basic design or the result of the failure seen in the material used for the structure's manufacturing. The purpose of this research is to analyze the new generation of aircraft morphing slat, by utilizing a Finite Element (FE) model as a design tool to assess the structural integrity of structure of the new morphing slat. Another aim is to investigate a material deemed suitable for making the morphing slat that can result in less deformation and stresses. In this study, structural analyses were carried out by using ANSYS WORKBENCH on the morphing slat geometry after creating it in CATIA V5. In a structural analysis, the modeling used three different materials, namely, Al6065-T6, AA7075-T651, and GFRP. The structure of morphing slat is subject to maximum aerodynamic pressure in two flight phases that include taking-off and landing which was found by using Computational-Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis from earlier work. By conducting the structural analysis, one can examine the reliability of the rigid segments and structure of morphing slat under the applied aerodynamic load, which is necessary for the selection of the material for the morphing slat design. The results of static structural analysis showed that the AA7075-T651material is the most suitable material that can be used for morphing slats because it has the least deformation and strain after comparing it with Al6065-T6 and GFRP. Hence, AA 7075-T651 can give the structure of morphing slat more strength over the other two materials