12. Numerical Simulation of an A320 Morphing Wing Through Frequency Modulation in the Vicinity of the Trailing Edge in Subsonic Regimes

Bioinspired electroactive morphing is investigated around an A320 wing at high Reynolds number in subsonic regime by applying slight deformations and vibrations in the near trailing edge region. The effects of morphing on the aerodynamic performance are studied numerically using the Navier Stokes Multi-Block (NSMB) code on the \(70\, {\text{cm}}\) chord Reduced Scale (RS) prototype of the European Union project “Smart Morphing and Sensing for aeronautical configurations”—SMS (https://​www.​smartwing.​org/​SMS/​EU), at \(10^\circ\) of incidence and for a Reynolds number of 1 million. This study focuses on the effects of a constant actuation frequency and on the time modulation of this frequency following a linear evolution, called wobulation, which to the authors’ knowledge, is new in the state-of-the-art with respect to morphing wings. An extensive 2D numerical parametric study has been performed, which allows the evaluation of optimal morphing parametric ranges. The studied interval of constant actuation frequency is \({f}_{a}=\left[10-600\right]\,{\text{Hz}}\) and the amplitude of vibrations is \({a}_{p}=0.7 \,{\text{mm}}\). The High Fidelity CFD simulations used the Organised Eddy Simulation (OES) turbulence modelling approach, sensitized to coherent structures development. A thorough understanding of the physical phenomena that occur with both constant actuation frequency and wobulation has been undertaken. By beneficially manipulating the surrounding turbulence, it is shown that the optimal constant actuation frequency ranges increase the mean lift by an order of 2% and reduce the mean drag by an order of 1%. It has been shown that wobulation allows the detection of optimal intervals for constant actuation frequency, resulting in an overall increase in aerodynamic performance.