Conceptual Design of an Adaptive Wing for a Three-surfaces Airplane

Abstract

The article describes the activities developed by Politecnico di Milano, as partner of Active Aeroelastic Aircraft Structures (3AS) EU project, focused on the preliminary investigations on the Active Adaptive Wing Camber (AAWC) concept, based on a device able to continuously change the camber angle of a wing. After a short description of the device, a preliminary investigation on the possible advantages of that device on the performances of a reference aircraft is reported. The investigation is formulated solving an optimization problem where the induced drag is minimized.