Investigations of passive wing technologies for load reduction

Wings of modern aircraft have to be designed to give optimal response with respect to loads, comfort and performance. An essential part of the wing development is thus a design process which can take all these aspects into consideration. In the “Adaptive Wing” work package of the CleanSky “Smart Fixed Wing Aircraft” project, a multi-fidelity wing design method using aeroelastic tailoring has been developed. In the article, the process is presented in detail. The approach is based on a parametric wing design approach. Both beam models and shell models are derived and optimized in separate optimization environments. Investigations of the use of unbalanced laminates in aeroelastic tailoring are presented, employing the optimization of lamination parameters. The applications are demonstrated on two aircraft configurations, a long range and a short range transport aircraft. Further developments presented in the article include the introduction of CFD-based aerodynamics in the tailoring process, and a process extension to assess the influence of aeroelastic tailoring on fatigue.