The technology paradigm presented in this paper is to provide active control of winglet structure subject to external stimuli to meet operational performance criteria, by means of smart actuation integration. A tier schedule is employed to develop application to take full advantage of material compliance through MDO to form functionally active integrated non-planar wing, to improve multi-phase mission performance, manoeuvrability and integrated economics (e.g., 5-6% augmented aerodynamic efficiency throughout the flight envelope, compared to 3% of current fixed winglets). This paper presents the first steps of the hierarchical methodology (i.e., smart actuation efficient down-selection) towards the final morphing application (i.e., MORPHLET), through the technology selection and preliminary optimized non-planar wing schedules.
This article presents the preparation of a working physical mock-up wingtip device with morphing functionality. The objective of the mechanical demonstrator is to achieve a technology readiness level to establish confidence that one would proceed to an in-service R&D initiative. To establish the feasibility of scalable technology integration for product development, a tier schedule is employed to demonstrate material compliance, mechanism kinematics and perform bandwidth experimentation. Potential composite materials for design of flexible skins (i.e., Hexweb®, Kevlar® 49 and HexPly®) were assessed using a spectrum of experimental verification procedures. These results are embodied to benchmark qualitatively and quantitatively the mechanical performance of the potential materials to use in a preliminary optimized morphing schedule.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the latest subscale demonstrator aircraft developed at Linköping University. It has been built as part of a study initiated by the Swedish Material Board (FMV) on a Generic Future Fighter aircraft. The paper will cover different aspects of the performed work: from paper study realised by SAAB to the first flight of the scaled demonstrator. The intention of the paper is to describe what has been realised and explain how the work is may be used to fit within aircraft conceptual design.Design/methodology/approachThe approach has been to address the challenges proposed by the customer of the demonstrator, how to design, manufacture and operate a scaled demonstrator of an aircraft study in conceptual design within five months. Similar research projects have been reviewed in order to perform the current work.FindingsThe results obtained so far have led to new questions. In particular, the project indicated that more research is needed within the area of subscale flight testing for usage in aircraft conceptual design, since a scaled demonstrator is likely to answer some questions but will probably open up new ones.Research limitations/implicationsThe current research is just in its infancy and does not bring any final conclusion but does, however, offer several guidelines for future works. Since the aircraft study was an early phase concept study, not much data are available for validation or comparison. Therefore, the paper is not presenting new methods or general conclusions.Practical implicationsResults from a conceptual aircraft study and a realisation of a scaled prototype are presented, which show that scaled flight testing may be used with some restriction in conceptual design.Originality/valueThe value of this paper is to show that universities can be involved in prototype development and can work in close collaboration with industries to address issues and solutions within aircraft conceptual design.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.