Design and Analysis of a Novel Flexible Rudder with Zero Poisson's Ratio Honeycomb

Smooth and continuous variable camber airfoils have significant advantages in improving aerodynamic performance, but the existing schemes are usually complex and expensive. To address this problem, a novel flexible rudder combining a flexible structure and the traditional actuating mechanism is proposed. In the rudder, a zero Poisson's ratio honeycomb with cosine-type beams is employed as the flexible structure, which is driven by an embedded distributed skeleton to realize the deflection of the seamless rudder. The deflection of the rudder surface was simulated by finite element analysis in ANSYS. Results show that the rudder surface can always maintain an excellent aerodynamic shape within the deflection range of ±25°; the maximum stress in the honeycomb is 32.092MPa under initial design, which meets the structural safety. The maximum deflection of the rudder varies from 12.09° to 24.63° when the honeycomb thickness decreases from 1mm to 0.8mm, under the output torque of 1.3Kg·cm. In addition, the weight of the rudder surface is reduced by 31.58% compared with the traditional rudder surface, which effectively reduces the flight burden. The proposed flexible rudder is expected to promote the high-performance and low-cost application of seamless flexible airfoils.