Changing the shape of wing design using "digital materials"

Though we're used to airplane wings with moving flaps that
control the
craft's movements, the first flying machine built by the
Wright brothers
in 1908 used a different technique called wing warping.
Instead of tilting airfoils attached to the trailing edges
of wings,
warping uses wires and pulleys to alter the shape of wood
and canvas
wings to perform the function that ailerons and flaps do in
modern
airplanes.

According to the NASA/MIT team, there have been numerous
attempts to
revive this technology, but these have relied on mechanisms
inside the
wing to bend it. The problem has been that this machinery
usually turns
out to be too heavy and complicated, which offsets any
increases in
aerodynamic efficiency.

A newly developed wing architecture could greatly simplify
the
manufacturing process and reduce fuel consumption by...

The NASA/MIT approach is to not just do away with the
internal
mechanism, but to fundamentally redesign the structure of
the wing so it
is capable of bending by itself. The design achieves this by
dividing
the wing into lightweight, overlapping scale- or
feather-like
sub-segments. These are supported by tunable and actively
deformable
modular building blocks, dubbed "digital materials," that
are made of
carbon fiber-reinforced polymers that can be quickly
engineered and
snapped together and allow the wing to deform while
maintaining a
smooth, aerodynamic surface.

This modular approach would allow the individual support
pieces to be
mass produced and combined in an almost endless variety of
shapes, which
could be constructed by simple minature robots that crawl
along the
exterior or even the interior of the structure as it is
constructed.
Though the researchers have already developed prototype
robots, they
built the initial test structure by hand and used skin
panels instead of
scales that would be used the ultimate version.

The units used were morphed manually using two small motors
to twist the
wingtips and bend the wing uniformly along its entire
length.
The purpose of this test piece was to get the wing to twist
in the same
manner as if it was made of separate scales instead of
panels by
fine-tuning the structure so it twists on command into the
desired
aerodynamic shape.

So far, wind tunnel tests have shown the test wing has
aerodynamic
properties of a conventional wing weighing 10 times more.
The team then
built a drone aircraft flown from the ground by a certified
test pilot,
who found it responsive enough to do aerobatics.

Gershenfeld sees this technology as not only leading to
super-efficient
long-range drones, but as having applications beyond
aerospace
engineering, inlcuding in wind turbines, skyscrapers,
bridges, and space
structures. It could also be used to create soft robots that
can bend
wherever desired without joints, are lighter than equivalent
robots, yet
can maintain the desired level of stiffness for the job.
Repairs of
machines built with the units would be cheaper and easier as
damaged
units could be replaced by maintenance robots with new
ones.

MIT <http://news.mit.edu/2016/morphing-airplane-wing-design-1103
<http://news.mit.edu/2016/morphing-airplane-wing-design-1103>
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John Dinkel

Where are the puns?  :-)

Paul Lamar


Paul,
On an even less punishing note.  A I read these
advances in aero, I
think to myself that we are on the cusp of our ability to
control and
develop materials that will take us to the stars.  Can
our control of
gravity, magnetism and dark matter be that far in the
future?  Maybe 10
years????

Or maybe we’ve had much of this tech since Roswell . . .
John Dinkel


IMHO all the space stuff is a huge waste of money.

Paul Lamar


The nation that controls magnetism controls the galaxy or
universe. Dick
Tracy Dale Davies


ROFL

Paul Lamar

BMW has been looking at this Idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy2PYRl78Us
Andrew Cambell.

Looks like a space frame covered in fabric. Count Zeppelin
would roll
over in
his grave :-)


Paul Lamar


It looks like something from my weirdest nightmares.

Jenn Kimball


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