Investigation of Large Fold Angles of a Semi Aeroelastic Hinged Wing Tip

The Semi Aeroelastic Hinged wing tip concept has been developed by Airbus with the University of Bristol and is based on idea of allowing a wing-tip, that can be moved on the ground to fit airport gates, to be released for passive movement in-flight to enable gust loads alleviation & improved roll efficiency. It is a means to achieve very high aspect ratio wings with significant aero performance benefits without any increased weight, thus improving the aircraft fuel efficiency and reducing the environmental impact.

The student will develop a series of non-linear computational aeroelastic models using MATLAB and FE based models in order to predict the response characteristics of the folding wing-tip and to perform parameter studies. Wind tunnel tests will be performed, plus potentially flight test experiments (using the AlbatrossONE UAV demonstrator aircraft), to investigate the aeroelastic phenomena associated with very large wing tip folding angles such as passive deployment on the ground or inadvertent over-folding of wing tips in-flight, and to validate the numerical models.