Gust load alleviation of electric aircraft with distributed propulsors using thrust vectoring

ifasd2024 Tracking Number 145

This paper proposes a new concept for gust load alleviation of an electric aircraft with distributed propulsors (DP) using thrust vectoring. Aircraft electrification has received a lot of attention in recent years due to climate change concerns [1]. There are several concepts available in the literature for electric aircraft, but one of the most promising ones is the distributed electric propulsion (DEP) which has several benefits [2-4]. Moreover, it has already been shown that wings with higher aspect ratios have higher aerodynamic performance [5]. So, if both of these two methods are combined (high aspect ratio wings with distributed propulsion), the wing potentially will have higher aerodynamic performance, which can result in a more energy efficient aircraft. To be able to design the wing structure for such an aircraft, it is crucial to calculate all external loads applied on the wing. One of the most extreme dynamic loads that an aircraft wing can experience is the gust load. In this study, the effectiveness of thrust vectoring of electric propulsors on gust load alleviation of high aspect ratio wings is studied. It is assumed that the rotor disc of the electric motors can be tilted to the left, right, up or down (as shown in Figure 1), using a mechanism similar to helicopter rotors. This concept has already been investigated for aeroelastic stability enhancement [6], and this study aims to further investigate its effectiveness for gust load alleviation of high aspect ratio wings with DEP configuration.