Nonlinear Folding Wing Tips for Gust Loads Alleviation

Abstract

A recent consideration in aircraft design is the use of folding wing tips with the aim of enabling higher aspect ratio aircraft with less induced drag, but also meeting airport gate limitations. This study builds on previous work investigating the effect of exploiting folding wing tips in-flight as a device to reduce dynamic gust loads, but now with the introduction of a passive nonlinear hinge spring to allow wing-tip deflections only for larger load cases. A representative civil jet aircraft aeroelastic model is used in a multibody simulation code to explore the effect of introducing such a hinged wing-tip device on the loads behavior. It was found that significant reductions in the dynamic loads were possible.