Blending Modern Multifunctional Materials with Traditional Structures: An Approach for a Greener and Cleaner Future

The objective of the project is to propose a multifunctional composite material system for next generation rotorcraft's structural components. In particular, a hybrid composite termed as Piezo-Battery Fiber Reinforced Composite (P-BFRC) comprising of piezoelectric and battery fibers is proposed for the rotorcraft blades, which are arranged in an appropriate optimized fashion. The optimized layout will depend on the characteristic of vibrations in the rotor blades and associated structural components. For the fuselage skin panels, use of Battery Fiber Reinforced Composite (BFRC) is proposed. In the rotor blades and the regions where vibration amplitudes are larger, the P-BFRC structure aims to extract electrical energy from the structural vibrations using the piezoelectric panels and store it within the battery panels embedded in the structure itself. In the fuselage, the battery composite skin panels, upon charging from ground station, can serve as power source for operation for several rotorcraft's electrical and electronic components. Importantly, the proposed multifunctional structure is optimized such that the structural characteristics of the existing rotorcraft is not compromised, while simultaneously performing its multiple functions. In other words, introducing such multifunctional material does not increase overall weight nor reduce the structural load carrying capability. In addition, the proposed material system intend to make minimal modifications in the existing system as far as structure and power management systems are concerned, thereby a re-design of entire structural/power system is not necessary. Preliminary analyses have been conducted for to study the energy harvesting and storage characteristics of the multifunctional structure. This work focuses on detailed quantification of energy harvesting and storage capabilities of the proposed multifunctional system through appropriate electro-mechanical models. Altogether, the multifunctional structural system is found to be a promising step towards a cleaner and sustainable aviation.