Development of a Very Flexible Testbed Aircraft for the Validation of Nonlinear Aeroelastic Codes

PhD Candidate: Jessica R. Jones
Dissertation Chair: Professor Carlos Cesnik

High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) aircraft have been the subject of growing interest. These aircraft are designed for operations at altitudes that far exceed those of passenger aircraft, and the flight duration can be measured in weeks and months, rather than hours. This mission profile is ideal for applications formerly reserved for a low-orbit satellite, including surveillance, atmospheric research, and communications networking. The HALE aircraft requirements result in lightweight designs with high-aspect-ratio, very flexible wings for aerodynamic efficiency. These aircraft become so flexible that traditional, linear approaches to modeling their dynamic flight behavior are insufficient. Few solvers have been developed to address the need for nonlinear aeroelastic analysis tools, including the University of Michigan Nonlinear Aeroelastic Simulation Toolbox (UM/NAST). However, little in-flight data from HALE vehicles exists for researchers to validate their formulations.

X-HALE is an unmanned Experimental High-Altitude Long-Endurance testbed aircraft intended to provide high quality data to support validation of coupled nonlinear aeroelastic-flight mechanics codes. X-HALE is aeroelastically representative of full-scale HALE aircraft, exhibiting the large, geometrically nonlinear wing deformation and coupled elastic-rigid-body behavior that is a hallmark of many HALE designs. Data from X-HALE flight tests are correlated with aeroelastic predictions from UM/NAST to validate its capability of modeling the coupled aeroelastic and flight dynamic behavior of highly flexible aircraft.


Dissertation Committee

Professor Carlos C.E.S. Cesnik, Chair
Professor Yin Lu Young, Cognate
Professor Daniel J. Inman
Professor Peretz P. Friedmann


Publications

Ritter, M., Jones, J.R., Cesnik, C.E.S., “Free-flight Nonlinear Aeroelastic Simulations of the X-HALE UAV by an Extended Modal Approach.” International Forum on Aeroelasticity and Flight Dynamics, Como, IT. 25-28 June 2017.

Jones, J.R., Cesnik, C.E.S., “Nonlinear Aeroelastic Analysis of the X-56 Multi-Utility Aeroelastic Demonstrator,” AIAA Scitech 2016, San Diego, CA, 4-8 Jan. 2016.
Ritter, M., Jones, J.R., Cesnik, C.E.S., “Enhanced Modal Approach for Free-Flight Nonlinear Aeroelastic Simulation of Very Flexible Aircraft,” AIAA Scitech 2016, San Diego, CA, 4-8 Jan. 2016.

Jones, Jessica R., Cesnik, Carlos E.S. Preliminary Flight Test Correlations of the X-HALE Aeroelastic Experiment. The Aeronautical Journal, June 2015.