Masato Tamayama

Wind Tunnel Test of Morphing Flap Driven by Shape Memory Alloy Wires

Morphing wings that transform their configuration seamlessly are expected to improve maneuverability and reduce noise and energy consumption of airplanes compared to conventional wings deformation including gaps and kinks. In addition, solid actuators such as electromagnetic motors and shape memory alloys (SMAs) reduce weight and maintenance cost compared to conventional hydraulic actuators. In this paper, a morphing flap model with a 500mm span × 642mm chord is developed, one-third of the trailing part of which deforms elastically. The actuator system is comprised of thin SMA wires and air blowers to improve the response of the SMA wires. Wind tunnel tests of the morphing flap model are carried out to check its controllability and examine its performance under aerodynamic loads.

Shape-retainment control using an antagonistic shape memory alloy system

Since shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators can generate large force per unit weight, they are expected as one of the next generation actuators for aircraft. To keep a position of conventional control surfaces or morphing wings with SMA actuators, the SMA actuators must keep being heated, and the heating energy is not small. To save the energy, a new control method proposed for piezoelectric actuators utilizing hysteresis in deformation [Ikeda and Takahashi, Proc. SPIE 8689 (2013), 86890C] is applied to an antagonistic SMA system. By using the control method any position can be an equilibrium point within hysteresis of stress-strain diagrams. To confirm a feasibility of the control method, a fundamental experiment is performed. The SMA wires are heated by applying electric current to the wires. When a pulsed current is applied to the two SMA wires alternately, the equilibrium position changes between two positions alternately, and when a series of pulse whose amplitude increases gradually is applied to one SMA wire, the equilibrium position changes like a staircase. However, just after the pulse the position returns slightly, that is, overshoot takes place. To investigate such a behavior of the system, numerical simulation is also performed. The one-dimensional phase transformation model [Ikeda, Proc. SPIE 5757 (2005), 344-352] is used for a constitutive model of the SMA wires. The simulated result agrees with the experiment qualitatively, including the overshoot. By examining volume fraction of each phase, it is found that the overshoot is caused by that austenite phase transforms into stress-induced martensite phase during the cooling process after the pulse.

Unsteady transonic aerodynamics during wing flutter

Unsteady pressure distributions of a two-dimensional super-critical wing while it was fluttering were measured in the transonic flow regime. The results were compared with those by the Navier-Stokes code which includes wind-tunnel wall effects. Although there were discrepancies between the experimental results and the analytical model for the pressure phase delay distribution, no disagreements were observed for the pitching first harmonics provided that there was no large flow separation. In the tests, the flutter was forced to be suppressed soon after its onset before it reached a limit cycle oscillation (LCO) where the amplitude of the pitching angle was supposed to be over 2 degrees.