Static aeroelastic analysis of very flexible wing based on the 3-D lifting-line theory

The aeroelasticity of very flexible wing has been a focus problem in the high-altitude long-endurance aircraft design for more than one decade. The geometric nonlinear aeroelasticity of the wing has been studied by many researchers, but there was little development in aerodynamics, especially an accurate method with less time consuming. The three-dimension lifting-line theory has a potential in the static aeroelastic problems of very flexible wing with quite large deformation. In this paper, the 3-D lifting-line method is established to calculate the steady aerodynamics of the curved bending wing. For a wind tunnel model of wing, the static aeroelastic analysis is carried out based on the nonlinear finite element method and the 3-D lifting-line method. The elastic displacement and the air force of the wing have an acceptable accuracy compared with the wind tunnel test. The results show that the method in this paper is suitable for the preliminary design and the static aeroelastic analysis of the large aspect ratio wing.