Abstract
The paper focuses on the experimental characterization of hyperelastic of the shelf materials in an effort to implement a membrane skin on a low speed asymmetric wing, in order to assess the benefits of flexible lift surfaces. To better determine the best strain energy function definition for the membrane materials, the most notable hyperelastic constitutive models were used together with experimental uniaxial and equiaxial planar tests. For the experimental equi-biaxial test a special loading device was designed and built in the laboratory. The strain measurements for the experimental tests were conducted using digital image correlation, for increased data precision. From the available constitutive material models taken into account, the best for this application proves to be the Yeoh model, as the experimental strain-stress data has a close match for small as well as large strain values. Numerical simulations using finite elements and the Ansys software were performed to predict the materials behavior.
Keywords: hyperelastic material; aeroelastic model; equiaxial rig; Neo-Hookean; Mooney-Rivlin; Yeoh and Odgen model