Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become increasingly popular in recent years, with a wide range of applications in various fields, such as military, surveillance, search and rescue, and agriculture. Conventional UAV wings designed for a range of flight conditions compromise with optimal performance at each condition. Morphing wings can change the wing geometry in flight. Which potentially integrates the benefits of multiple optimal configurations for each flight condition. One of the advancements in wing-morphing technology is the development of span-morphing wings, which can change their wingspan during flight. A common mechanism which can be used to achieve span morphing is the telescopic mechanism. This mechanism consists of two beams: a main or primary support beam (cantilever type) and a secondary beam extending out or retracting inside the primary support beam. Thus, by moving the secondary beams over the primary support beam, the span of the beam can be increased or decreased. Span morphing UAV wings are typically designed to be very lightweight to improve performance, resulting in very flexible structures. With morphing UAVs, understanding aeroelasticity is particularly important due to their flexible and dynamically changing wing structures, which makes them more susceptible to aeroelastic effects.

As part of this research, various models are proposed to study the morphing induced dynamic and aeroelastic behaviour of the span morphing UAVs. To study the dynamics of the host beam a moving load based approach is proposed. Here the movement of secondary beam can be modelled as an equivalent moving-loads (.ie moving forces, moving bending moments, and moving torque) acting on the supporting beam. Similarly, to study the dynamics of the sliding beam a novel coupled cantilever beam approach is proposed. Where the primary beam is assumed to be fixed at it’s root. The secondary beam is associated with a slider at its root to facilitate its movement. The morphing induced nonlinear effects are also addressed in this study. This study will propose recommendations for Aeroelastically Compliant Span Morphing Wing designs.