Design, Manufacturing and Preliminary Test Results of an Adaptive Wing Camber Model

Abstract

In the present paper, a new device developed to implement the Active Adaptive Wing Camber (AAWC) concept is analyzed in details and the results of the preliminary experimental results are reported. The AAWC concept is related to a more general concept of Mission Adaptive Wing, i.e. a wing able to adapt itself, by means of configuration and/or shape variation, to changes of flight conditions during the mission, so as to maximize some performance indices. The proposed device is based on a modification of the original idea proposed by Dr. Monner from DLR and called for sake of simplicity Rotating Ribs (RR) concept. To test the reliability of the proposed concept, a wing model has been designed and manufactured. The results of the preliminary static tests and the correlations to numerical predictions are reported in the following.