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> <http://news.mit.edu/2016/morphing-airplane-wing-design-1103 <http://news.mit.edu/2016/morphing-airplane-wing-design-1103>> View
   gallery - 5 images

   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

I would just settle for grabbing some asteroids, mining, manufacture off world
technology for use in aerospace projects.  Galaxy / Universe Projects are a long ways off...

George F. Curtis Jr.



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