Smart Morphing and Sensing for the Wings of the Future

This article presents a synthesis of main results from the H2020 European Research project N 723,402 “Smart Morphing and Sensing for Aeronautical Configurations”, www.smartwing.org/SMS/EU concerning the design of disruptive wing configurations able to considerably increase the aerodynamic performances compared to conventional designs. This is achieved thanks to novel smart actuators electrically actuated and embedded under the “skin” of the lifting structure and new generation of sensors based on Bragg grating. Therefore, optimal deformations and vibrations are produced in multiple time and length scales, able to manipulate the surrounding turbulence structure in order to increase lift and simultaneously decrease drag and aerodynamic noise in all flight phases, take-off, landing and cruise. Results from High-Fidelity numerical simulations accompanied by experiments with morphing A320 non-swept wing configurations as well as a modified two-element high-lift configuration near scale 1 are discussed regarding the increase of the aerodynamic performances.