Aircraft morphing wing concepts with radical geometry change

Abstract

Aircraft morphing schemes affect flying performance of aircrafts by dramatic change of aircraft body shapes. Such schemes eliminate the need for multiple, expensive, mission-specific aircraft. Morphing designs include rotating, sliding and inflating based on shape change mechanisms. The current trend in technology development shows that there is room to improve with regards to aircraft size, flying range and flight performance envelope. There should be a balance between shape change and the penalties in cost, complexity and weight. Final performance of the morphing aircraft depends heavily on how such a balance is achieved.

In-flight Folding Wingtip System: Inspiration from the XB-70 Valkyrie

“…This led to metallic airframes and hinged control surfaces to cope with increased loads, speeds and structural requirements. Effectively, continuous wing warping and other attempts at unconventional morphing quickly became marginal in aircraft development, though a number of past flown examples can be found in the literature [3][4][5][6]. It is worthy to note that the most successful morphing aircraft so far have been those with variable sweep, with a number of military examples, as it allows for significant performance changes and flight envelope extension.…”

In-flight Wingtip Folding: Inspiration from the XB-70 Valkyrie

“…But wing warping and other attempts at morphing quickly became marginal in aircraft development, as human flight made its first steps in history though military applications, quickly requiring strong, fast and more reliable airframes. A number of past flown morphing capable aircraft examples have nonetheless emerged (Barbarino, Bilgen, Ajaj, Friswell, & Inman, 2011;McGowan, Vicroy, Busan, & Hahn, 2009;Min, Kien, & Richard, 2010;Weisshaar, 2006). Variable sweep has arguably seen the most success, as it allows for significant performance changes and flight envelope extension for reasonable system specifications and spatial requirements, with a number of military examples.…”

A review of modelling and analysis of morphing wings

“…In today's meaning, morph indicates the ability to transform shape or structure. A large body of work on morphing structures exists, and is based either on material or shape morphing mechanisms [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Some of these references classified morphing wings based on the geometry change [1-3, [9] or the actuator concepts [7], while other references focused at one specific element, such as special materials and relative techniques [6,8,11,12], special actuators [10] and applications [4,5].…”