The Effect of Thrust Vectoring on Aeroelastic Stability of Electric Aircraft

What is it about?

To achieve the net-zero 2050 target, aerospace industries started to work on novel and breakthrough solutions/technologies to cut aviation emissions. One of these promising solutions is to design full electric aircraft with distributed electric propulsors (DEP). This is a new concept, and still in the experimental stage. The DEP configuration that is used in this study consists of several units of high-lift motors which are used for take-off and landing, and one tip propulsor used for cruise condition. This wing configuration has several benefits compared to traditional wings. Due to the number of propulsors, the safety aspect of the aircraft increases due to the number of propulsors used. Also, as they spin with a relatively slower rotational speed, compared to jet-engines, their noise level is less. Furthermore, they have several other benefits such as aerodynamic enhancement, and gust load alleviation, and more potential benefits such as the using thrust vectoring to enhance the wing aeroelasticity. In this paper, the effect of thrust vectoring of electric propulsors on the aeroelastic stability of an electric aircraft wing is investigated. The developed model resembles the NASA X-57 electric aircraft. It is assumed that the rotor disc of propulsors is able to be tilted in two directions (e.g. pitch and yaw) to change the thrust vector. It is highlighted that by vectoring the thrust it is possible to enhance the aeroelastic stability of the wing. But the amount of change is dependent on the pitch or yaw angle of thrust vector, thrust value and mass of the propulsors. Also, it is obtained that yawing the thrust has more effect on the stability of the wing than pitching the vector. Finally, it is observed that the thrust vectoring mechanism is more effective for higher bending to torsion stiffness ratios.

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Photo by Bornil Amin on Unsplash

Photo by Bornil Amin on Unsplash