AdAPTS: Adaptive Aerostructures for Power and Transportation Sustainability

动力与运输可持续性自适应气动结构(ADAPTS)是一个早期职业联谊会研究项目，它将通过利用基于顺应性的变形的适应性来不断优化气动性能，从而推动一种雄心勃勃的新方法来设计气动结构。这将通过减少空气动力阻力、提高效率和改善对不断变化的运行条件的适应能力，实现更环保、更可持续的固定和旋转翼运输以及风力涡轮机发电。基于顺应性的自适应气动结构设计的目的是展示结构和材料的灵活性，使其能够以平滑和连续的方式改变其形状。这些形状的变化被隔离为空气动力学表面特定区域中的某些所需运动，例如机翼后部的曲率大小，以便在保持整体强度的同时实现形状的有针对性的变化。这些形状的变化提高了机翼或叶片产生升力的能力，最大限度地减少了产生的阻力，并允许不断适应不断变化的运行条件。初步工作表明，PI开发的基于顺应性的变形设备系列可以显著提高5%-25%的性能。虽然潜在的好处是有希望的，但仍有许多工作要做，以使基于顺应性的变形成为可行的解决方案。人们对这些类型的结构知之甚少，其基础技术需要大力发展。对这些结构的性能和行为缺乏了解是因为它们的顺应性，这意味着结构、空气动力学和驱动特性都是高度耦合的-空气动力载荷影响驱动形状，进而影响空气动力学。这种耦合需要以一种内聚、耦合的方式模拟所有涉及的物理。此外，用于实现这些平滑和连续变形形状的结构、材料和驱动技术是新颖的，因此需要付出大量努力才能使它们成熟到可以用于现实世界应用的程度。最后，固定翼、旋转翼和风力涡轮机领域的行业合作伙伴看到了这些技术的潜力，但由于它们如此新颖，与当前的方法不同，需要做工作来证明这些技术可以为其应用实现具体的、定量的性能改进。为了解决这个问题的三个方面，Adapts将开展一项雄心勃勃的研究计划，包括三个平行的工作流：1)创建一个全面的分析框架，以便自下而上更好地了解基于合规性的变形结构的层次化、耦合性能。)迅速成熟拟议的变形技术，以及3.)直接与业界合作，为其产品分析和设计自适应结构，并预测可实现的性能改进。

Adaptive Aerostructures for Power and Transportation Sustainability (AdAPTS) is an Early Career Fellowship research project which will advance an ambitious new approach to the design of aerostructures by harnessing the adaptability of compliance-based morphing to continuously optimise aerodynamic performance. This will allow for greener and more sustainable fixed and rotary wing transportation and wind turbine power generation through reduced aerodynamic drag, increased efficiency and improved resilience to changing operating conditions. Compliance-based adaptive aerostructures are designed to exhibit structural and material flexibility that allows them to change their shape in a smooth and continuous manner. These changes in shape are isolated to certain desired motions in specific areas of an aerodynamic surface, for example the amount of curvature at the rear of an aerofoil, to allow for targeted changes in shape while retaining overall strength. These changes in shape improve the ability of the wing or blade to produce lift, minimise the amount of drag generated, and allow for continuous adaptation to changing operating conditions. Initial work has shown that the family of compliance-based morphing devices developed by the PI can provide significant improvements in performance of 5-25%.While the potential benefits are promising, much work remains to make compliance-based morphing a viable solution. These types of structures are poorly understood, and the underlying technologies need significant development. The poor understanding of the performance and behaviour of these structures is due to their compliant nature, which means that the structural, aerodynamic, and actuation characteristics are all highly coupled - with the aerodynamic loading affecting the actuated shape, which in turn affects the aerodynamics. This coupling requires simulation of all of the physics involved in a cohesive, coupled manner. Furthermore, the structural, material, and actuation technologies used to achieve these smooth and continuous deformed shapes are novel, and therefore significant effort is needed to mature them to the point where they can be used in real-world applications. Finally, industry partners in the fixed wing, rotary wing, and wind turbine fields see the potential in these technologies, but because they are so novel and different from current approaches, work needs to be done to show the specific, quantitative improvements in performance that these technologies can achieve for their applications.To address the three sides of this problem, AdAPTS will undertake an ambitious research programme with three parallel streams of work that will: 1.) create a fully comprehensive analysis framework to better understand the hierarchical, coupled performance of compliance-based morphing structures from the bottom up, 2.) rapidly mature the proposed morphing technologies, and 3.) work directly with industry to analyse and design adaptive structures for their products, and to predict the achievable improvements in performance.