Aeroelastic tailoring of composite wings with external stores

The use of an integrating matrix solution procedure allows the aeroelastic stability of a large number of wing/store combinations to be studied with relative speed and accuracy. Results are presented which show the effects of tailoring the orientation of the plies of laminated composite wings when external stores are present. The stores utilized take the form of concentrated masses that are varied in terms of size and location, and combinations of stores are also studied. It is seen that there are cases for which small changes in the laminate can produce large changes in the aeroelastic stability boundary, and for such situations care should be used in tailoring a wing. For a given wing, the choice fiber angle to optimize the aeroelastic performance is quite sensitive to both the size and location of the store.