Load-Bearing Wing Structures Inspired by Natural Cellular Materials

Abstract

This paper presents the optimization frameworks for designing cellular internal structures of an aircraft wing subjected to aerodynamic loads. Inspired by natural cellular materials, this study employs lattice and foam cells as the internal structures of the aircraft wing. The distribution of the cell materials is optimized by minimizing the mass and maximizing the stiffness while avoiding the global buckling of the wing. The optimization variables for the lattice structure are the cell size distribution field and the strut radii (or cell face thicknesses). Various weighting factor combinations are applied to the two competing objectives to obtain the optimal solution, considering different priorities of reducing mass or increasing stiffness. The results demonstrate that the wings with optimized cellular internal structures have higher structural efficiency than the reference wings with uniform cellular internal structures. The optimized wings also achieve higher structural efficiency than conventional wing designs when requiring heavy loading or a balanced tradeoff between load-bearing capacity and mass.