Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Hysteresis in Piezocomposite Airfoils Using Preisach Model

Abstract

In this paper, the classical (scalar) Preisach model is used to predict hysteresis observed in several Macro-Fiber Composite actuated piezocomposite bimorph devices: 1) two cantilevered beams, 2) a simply supported thin airfoil, and 3) a cascading bimorph thick airfoil. This paper contributes to the research field by examining the effectiveness of the scalar Preisach model for operational and wind-tunnel tested piezocomposite airfoils in the presence of aerodynamic and inertial loading and subjected to two different electrical boundary conditions. A low-speed opencircuit wind tunnel is used for experimental analysis. The flow speed is used as a parameter to understand the effect of nonuniform aerodynamic loading on the accuracy of the model. In addition, the excitation frequency is used as a parameter to understand the effect of inertial (mass) loading. It was observed that the aerodynamic loading, up to 19 m=s, has a negligible effect on the aerodynamic output of the airfoils considered in this research. The classical Preisach model is capable of predicting the hysteresis observed in all of the samples tested with an average prediction error less than 6.8% for a 0.5 Hz input signal and less than 9.3% for a 1 Hz input signal. The increasing-decreasing and decreasing-increasing first-order transition curves are both found to be equally successful in developing the Preisach model for all samples.

Low Reynolds Number Behavior of a Solid-State Piezocomposite Variable-Camber Wing

“…The following are a few examples of piezocomposite aerodynamic control surfaces which are validated in the wind tunnel environment. Bilgen et al presented static flow vectoring via an MFC actuated thin bimorph variable-camber airfoil [13] and an MFC actuated cascading bimorph variable-camber airfoil [14,15]. The wind tunnel results and the analytical evaluation of the airfoils showed comparable effectiveness to conventional actuation systems and no adverse deformation due to aerodynamic loading.…”

Control of the Flexural Axis of a Wing with Piezoelectric Actuation

“…It is known that MFC piezoelectric devices have a notable nonlinear nature culminating from various sources, none of which are accounted for in the presented analytical model; the impact of these linearized assumptions should be evaluated before implementation on a per-design basis. A thorough theoretical discussion of piezoelectric hysteresis effects can be found in [27,28]. Piezoelectric and material nonlinearities specifically for the MFC actuators have been experimentally investigated and documented by Williams [29] and Williams et al [30,31].…”

Design, Manufacturing and Test of a High Lift Secondary Flight Control Surface with Shape Memory Alloy Post-Buckled Precompressed Actuators

“…While the XQ-138 team simply sensed position and closed a loop to solve the problem, high end structural-mechanics models were developed to attack the open-loop variant of the problem. These general concepts were also extended to including hysteresis models and into devices using single crystal piezoelectric transducers [52][53][54]. Because piezoelectric macro-fiber composites could endure relatively high strain levels, they were employed in a number of flight control surfaces, some of which made it into flight quite successfully [55][56][57][58][59].…”