Effects of morphing wings on aerodynamics performance and energy efficiency improvement for ground effect vehicles

根据研究，化石燃料的枯竭在不久的将来是不可避免的。在航空业，全球化石燃料总量的约3%用于燃料消耗。这推动了对新技术的探索。飞机通过改进发动机、增强空气动力学和使用更轻的材料，产生更少的二氧化碳和更少的燃料。该项目将专注于变形解决方案，以增强地效飞行器的空气动力学性能，以降低燃料消耗。多年来，鸟类一直激励着人类飞行。最近，它们激发了一种愿望，即使飞机的机翼能够变形/改变形状。将变形技术应用于飞行器可以提高性能，减少阻力，提高能源效率，并最终降低燃料成本。通过改变飞机外形，特别是翼型和翼型，可以改善飞机的性能参数。在飞机从一种状态向另一种状态变形的过渡阶段，其空气动力学和气动弹性行为将发生重大变化。这些变化将对飞机的性能和稳定性产生影响。因此，如果不了解变形技术对飞机的影响，就不可能评估变形技术对性能和能源消耗的好处。两栖地翼车因其高速和低油耗被认为是一种很有前途的未来交通工具。将假发车辆与变形技术相结合，将带来更高效的交通方式。该项目的目的是通过高保真数值模拟和风洞试验，获得地效飞行器变形翼气动性能的综合数据，以扩大其飞行包线和降低燃油消耗，并详细了解其气动弹性/动力学行为。

According to research, the depletion of fossil fuel is inevitable in the near future. In the aviation industry, about 3% of the total worldwide fossil fuel is used for fuel consumption. This has driven the search for new technologies. Aircrafts produce less CO2 and use less fuel by improving engines, enhancing aerodynamics and using lighter materials. This project will focus on morphing solutions to enhance the aerodynamics performance of ground effect vehicles, in order to reduce fuel consumption.For years, birds have been inspiring human to flight. More recently they have inspired a desire to enable an airplane's wings to morph/change shape. Using morphing technologies to flying vehicles can result in an improved performance, drag reduction, energy efficiency, and ultimately reduce fuel cost. Improvement of the performance parameters can be achieved by changing the aircraft shape, especially the wing planform and airfoil shapes. In the transitional phase when an aircraft is morphing from one state to another, its aerodynamics and aero-elastic behaviour will change significantly. These changes will have an impact on the performance of the aircraft, and its stability. Thus, it will not possible to evaluate the benefits of morphing technologies on performance and energy consumption without understanding their impact on the aircraft.Amphibious Wing-in-Ground (WIG) vehicle is considered to be a promising form of future transport, due to its high speed and low fuel consumption. Combining WIG vehicles with morphing technology will lead to a more efficient way of transport. The aim of this project is to obtain a comprehensive data of the aerodynamics behaviour of the morphing wing in ground effect vehicles on flight performance enhancement to expand its flight envelope and reduce fuel consumption, and to gain a detailed understanding of its aero-elastic/dynamics behaviour through high fidelity numerical simulations, and wind tunnel tests.