A three-dimensional adaptive shock control bump made of shape memory alloy is proposed for transonic wings. The methodology to adaptively change the configuration of the airfoil using the shape memory alloy bump to reduce the shock strength and wave drag is numerically demonstrated using an airfoil RAE2822. The shape memory alloy bump is trained to have a flat initial shape with certain initial strain and can swell up when thermally activated. Boyd–Lagoudas phenomenological model is implemented in finite element method and used to compute the two-dimensional profile and the height of the shape memory alloy bump during thermal activation. The results show that the shape memory alloy bump can generate a considerable deflection due to the reverse phase transformation when thermally activated. The dependence of aerodynamic characteristics of the wing on the height of the shape memory alloy bump and the angle of attack is investigated using computational fluid dynamics method. The results show that there is an optimal bump height for a given angle of attack and the bump with a given height is effective only in certain range of angle of attack. Optimization of bump height and the corresponding driving temperature are carried out under variable angles of attack with the lift-to-drag ratio as the objective function.
Thermally activated iron-based shape memory alloy for strengthening metallic girders
