Morphing-wing aircraft have emerged as a pivotal design trend for expanding flight envelopes through enhanced lift-to-drag ratios and volumetric efficiency. Compared to conventional high-speed vehicles, these configurations not only encounter classical aerodynamic heating but also face localized thermal perturbations during wing deployment, presenting critical challenges for thermal protection systems. Fundamentally, the wing deployment process constitutes an unsteady flow phenomenon induced by moving components. Current experimental limitations persist in measuring dynamic aerodynamic heating under moving components during wind tunnel testing. Numerical simulations predominantly focus on steady-state analyses, with limited exploration of unsteady aerodynamic heating characteristics. To advance the simulation methodology for unsteady aerodynamic heating under moving components and investigate their additional thermal effects, this study establishes a physical model of wing deployment kinematics specifically for morphing-wing configurations. The computational framework integrates rigid-body dynamics with overset grid techniques, developing an implicit dynamic overset grid-based methodology for unsteady aerothermal analysis. A comparative numerical investigation was conducted using both conventional steady-state methods and the developed unsteady computational approach to analyze the transient aerothermal environment during morphing-wing deployment. This study systematically examined the unsteady flow field structures induced by wing rotation, identified the aerodynamic heating evolution patterns throughout the deployment process, and preliminarily characterized the transient thermal effects associated with wing morphing. Comparative analysis between unsteady and quasi-steady simulations reveals generally consistent heat flux distributions between the two methods. As the wing deploys, the wingtip experiences perturbations first, while unsteady thermal effects become pronounced at the root and midspan regions due to localized flow disturbances. The deployment amplitude significantly influences thermal perturbations: wingtip disturbances correlate with higher local linear velocity, whereas root/midspan perturbations relate to time-dependent shock-wave interactions and thermal accumulation. Flight angle of attack and Mach number also critically affect aerodynamic heating characteristics. These findings provide valuable insights for future thermal protection system design of morphing-wing aircraft.

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Numerical Simulation of Dynamic Aerothermal Effects During the Deployment Process of Folding Wings

  • Shaoquan He,
  • Youan Shi,
  • Kun He,
  • Jie Yao

摘要

Morphing-wing aircraft have emerged as a pivotal design trend for expanding flight envelopes through enhanced lift-to-drag ratios and volumetric efficiency. Compared to conventional high-speed vehicles, these configurations not only encounter classical aerodynamic heating but also face localized thermal perturbations during wing deployment, presenting critical challenges for thermal protection systems. Fundamentally, the wing deployment process constitutes an unsteady flow phenomenon induced by moving components. Current experimental limitations persist in measuring dynamic aerodynamic heating under moving components during wind tunnel testing. Numerical simulations predominantly focus on steady-state analyses, with limited exploration of unsteady aerodynamic heating characteristics. To advance the simulation methodology for unsteady aerodynamic heating under moving components and investigate their additional thermal effects, this study establishes a physical model of wing deployment kinematics specifically for morphing-wing configurations. The computational framework integrates rigid-body dynamics with overset grid techniques, developing an implicit dynamic overset grid-based methodology for unsteady aerothermal analysis. A comparative numerical investigation was conducted using both conventional steady-state methods and the developed unsteady computational approach to analyze the transient aerothermal environment during morphing-wing deployment. This study systematically examined the unsteady flow field structures induced by wing rotation, identified the aerodynamic heating evolution patterns throughout the deployment process, and preliminarily characterized the transient thermal effects associated with wing morphing. Comparative analysis between unsteady and quasi-steady simulations reveals generally consistent heat flux distributions between the two methods. As the wing deploys, the wingtip experiences perturbations first, while unsteady thermal effects become pronounced at the root and midspan regions due to localized flow disturbances. The deployment amplitude significantly influences thermal perturbations: wingtip disturbances correlate with higher local linear velocity, whereas root/midspan perturbations relate to time-dependent shock-wave interactions and thermal accumulation. Flight angle of attack and Mach number also critically affect aerodynamic heating characteristics. These findings provide valuable insights for future thermal protection system design of morphing-wing aircraft.