Manufacturing and characterisation of 3D printed thermoplastic morphing skins
Manufacturing and characterisation of 3D printed thermoplastic morphing skins
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DOI：
10.1088/1361-665x/ac71ed
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发表时间：
2022-08-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Woods, Benjamin K. S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Heeb, Rafael M.;Dicker, Michael;Woods, Benjamin K. S.
变形飞机是减少航空业环境影响的一个有希望的解决方案，因为它们可以提高飞机的空气动力学效率，从而减少温室气体排放。变形蒙皮的设计本身就具有挑战性，这是因为相互竞争的设计限制，即需要在平面外保持僵硬以抵抗压力载荷，同时又需要在平面内保持柔顺以最大限度地减少致动能量。这些作者之前的工作引入了几何各向异性热塑性橡胶(GATOR)变形皮肤的新概念，该概念利用多材料3D打印和结构比例定律，允许在这些相互竞争的设计约束之间更好地妥协。在这项工作中，多材料熔丝制造方法被用来3D打印由两种不同硬度的热塑性聚氨酯制成的鳄鱼夹层板材，以演示制造工艺并从实验上量化鳄鱼概念的一些简单实施例的性能。这些面板进行了机械测试，以确定它们的弯曲和拉伸硬度。结果表明，板材可以伸长到拉伸比为1.6的水平，在低拉伸比下具有线性响应。弯曲试验结果表明，柔性面板在屈曲前能够承受一定的压缩，在小力作用下表现为线性行为。这些结果显示了鳄鱼皮概念的前景，并激励了进一步利用该概念的基本原理的设计的未来发展。
Morphing aircraft are one promising solution to reducing the aviation industry's environmental impact because they can make aircraft more aerodynamically efficient, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The design of morphing skins is inherently challenging due to the competing design constraints of needing to be stiff out-of-plane to resist pressure loads while being compliant in-plane to minimise actuation energy. Previous work by these authors introduced the novel concept of Geometrically Anisotropic Thermoplastic Rubber (GATOR) morphing skins that take advantage of multi-material 3D printing and structural scaling laws to allow for better compromises between these competing design constraints. In this work, multi material Fused Filament Fabrication methods were used to 3D print the proposed GATOR sandwich panels from two different stiffnesses of thermoplastic polyurethane to demonstrate the manufacturing process and experimentally quantify the performance of some simple embodiments of the GATOR concept. The panels were mechanically tested to determine their flexural and extensional stiffnesses. Results show that the panels can be extended to a stretch ratio of lambda = 1.6 with a linear response at low stretch ratios. The results from the flexural experiments show that the flexible face sheets are capable of withstanding some compression before buckling, which results in a linear behaviour at small forces. These results show the promise of the GATOR skin concept and motivate future development of designs that further exploit the underlying principles of the concept.