A refined structural model for static aeroelastic response and divergence of metallic and composite wings

A refined beam model with hierarchical features is in this work extended to the static aeroelastic analysis of lifting surfaces made of metallic and composite materials. The refined structural one-dimensional (1D) theory is based on the Carrera Unified Formulation and it permits to take into account any cross-section deformation, including warping effects. The vortex lattice method is employed to provide aerodynamic loadings along the two in-plane wing directions (wing span and wing cross-section). Applications are obtained by developing a coupled aeroelastic computational model which is based on the finite element method. The accuracy of the proposed 1D model is shown by a number of applications related to various wings made of metallic and composite materials. The effect of the cross-section deformation is evaluated on the aeroelastic static response and divergence of the considered wings. The need of higher-order expansions is underlined as well as the limitations of beam results which are based on classical theories. Comparison with results obtained by existing plate/shell aeroelastic models shows that the present 1D model could result less expensive from the computational point of view with respect to shell cases. The beneficial effects of aeroelastic tailoring in the case of wings made of composite anisotropic materials are also confirmed by the present analysis.