Cross-sectional design of a composite rotor blade for twist morphing

Description

In this paper, a systematic and reliable approach is presented to design a composite rotor blade cross-section with high bend-twist coupling. The composite blade is designed to change the twist of the blade in flight. The change in the twist of the blade is the result of moving a mass near the tip of the blade. By shifting the mass along the chord of the blade, a variable bending moment is obtained. This bending moment can change the twist of the blade through the bend-twist coupling. First a baseline composite blade spar is selected, and the effect of various parameters on the different cross-sectional properties and the rotating frequencies of the blade are investigated. Then, the optimized cross-section with high bend-twist coupling is determined. It is found that the skin ply angle, skin thickness, and the spar location have significant effect on the coupling, and the highest effect belong to the skin ply angle.

Period	8 Oct 2018
Held at	6th Aircraft Structural Design Conference
Event type	Conference
Conference number	6
Location	Bristol, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	National