• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.1-5
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• 2006

Birds and insect in nature morph their mean camberline shapes to obtain both lift and thrust simultaneously. Previous unsteady thin airfoil theories were derived mainly for a rigid flapping airfoil. An extended unsteady thin airfoil theory for a deformable airfoil is required to analyze the unsteady two-dimensional aerodynamic characteristics of a biomorphing wing. Theodorsen's approach is extended to calculate the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of a biomorphing airfoil. The mean camberline of the airfoil is represented as a polynomial. The unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of the morphing airfoil are represented as noncirculatory and circulatory terms. Present theory can be applied to the unsteady aerodynamic analysis of a flapping biomorphing airfoil and the aeroelastic analysis of a morphing wing.