Geometrically nonlinear aeroelastic characteristics of highly flexible wing fabricated by additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing technology has a potential to improve manufacturing costs and may help to achieve high-performance aerospace structures. One of the application candidates would be a wind tunnel wing model. A wing tunnel model requires sophisticated designs and precise fabrications for accurate experiments, which frequently increase manufacturing cost. In this paper, manufacturing accuracy and aeroelastic characteristics of an additively manufactured wing model are evaluated numerically and experimentally. The feasibility of such wings to use in wind tunnel tests is also demonstrated. In addition, a geometrically nonlinear aeroelastic analysis model, which have been developed in the previous study, is validated for static calculations by comparing with results of the wind tunnel test for the additively manufactured highly flexible wing model.