Integrated Trim and Structural Design Process for Active Aeroelastic Wing Technology

A new method for concurrent trim and structural optimizationo factive aeroelasticwing technology ispresented.The new process treats trim optimization and structural optimization as an integrated problem in which control surface gear ratios and structural design variables are posed to gether in the same optimization problem and act toward the same objective of weight minimization. This new design philosophy is in contrast to most existing active aeroelastic wing design processes in which structural optimizationand trim optimization, each having their own different objectives and constraints, are performed in an iterative, sequential manner. The new integrated active aeroelastic wing desig n process is demonstrated on alig htweight ghter-type aircraft and compared to a more traditional, sequential a ctive aeroelastic wing design process. For this demonstration, the integra ted process convergesto a lower weight and offers an advanta geover the sequentialprocess in that optimizationis performed in one continuousrun,whereas the sequential approach requires pausing and restarting the structural optimization to allow for trim optimization.