CHAPTER

AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN
INDUSTRY VISION
2
Gianvito Apuleo
Piaggio Aerospace, Villanova d’Albenga (SV), Italy

CHAPTER OUTLINE
1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 86
2 Current Aircraft Capabilities .............................................................................................................. 86
2.1 Interest of Industry .......................................................................................................... 87
2.2 Some Considerations About Industry Aerodynamic Design Process ....................................... 88
2.3 Expected Performance Targets .......................................................................................... 90
2.4 Manufacturing: New Materials and Controlled Industrial Processes ...................................... 90
2.5 Assembly and Quality: Automation and Integrated Parts ...................................................... 91
2.6 Maintenance: Assessed Steps and Personnel Training ......................................................... 92
2.7 Safety: Assessed Methods for Standard Architectures ......................................................... 93
3 Current and Expected Needs ............................................................................................................. 96
3.1 Technology Transition ...................................................................................................... 96
3.2 A Mission Configurable Wing ............................................................................................ 97
3.3 Improved Flaps and Ailerons ............................................................................................. 98
4 Morphing as a Solution .................................................................................................................... 99
4.1 Wing and Control Surface Feasible Solutions ...................................................................... 99
4.2 Some Specific Requirements ............................................................................................ 99
5 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 100
References ........................................................................................................................................ 101

NOMENCLATURE
a/c aircraft
ADL allowable damage limit
AM additive manufacturing
b wing span
CD drag coefficient
CL lift coefficient
DSG design service goal
LL limit load
E energy of impact

Morphing Wing Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100964-2.00002-2

# 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
85
86 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

g gravitational acceleration factor

Λ wing sweep
λ wing planform taper
MTOW maximum takeoff weight
OEM original equipment manufacturer
OEW aircraft operative empty weight
P probability of impact
RPAS remote piloted aircraft system
S wing wetted area
SRM structures repair manual
TRL technological readiness level
W weight
WFUEL aircraft fuel weight
WPAYLOAD aircraft payload weight

1 INTRODUCTION
Taking inspiration from birds, the dream of every aeronautical engineer is to design the best possible
wing, able to smoothly run in all operating flight conditions. Birds, bats, and other flying creatures can
alter lift generated by their wings. In fact, they can adapt their wings to the needed conditions time after
time. Wings can be folded tightly to dive for prey, or fully extended to glide to save energy. They are
able to modify the camber and wing twist to control their flight.
On the other hand, engineers in aircraft industries still use the “single point design” standard, robust
and structured approach, which in itself, still represents the most feasible method practical to apply.
Fortunately, however, today the consolidation of different technologies help to overcome some fac-
tual difficulties, that until a few years ago seemed insurmountable, in the manufacturing of the wings,
giving greater impetus and credit to the “morphing discipline.”
The challenge of morphing in the future will mainly be to convince industry that this kind of tech-
nology can bring real advantages in terms of enhanced aerodynamic performance, lower installation
impact with respect to traditional control surface systems, reduced weight, and equivalent safety level.

2 CURRENT AIRCRAFT CAPABILITIES

The term “morphing wing” is used for a wide variety of different designs, in which the wing or portions
of the wing change shape, by classical control devices (see Fig. 1) or by innovative arrangement of
advanced materials and actuators.
Wing morphing, in fact, is not a new concept in aircraft design. The Wright Brothers, for example,
used wing warping through structural deformation to control the roll of the aircraft [1], Parker [2] pro-
posed a variable camber wing to increase flight speed. The Wright Flyer was made >100 years ago and
used a very simple design, largely of cloth.
Today, aircraft primary and secondary structures are very complex. To have an adaptive wing, that
must be: 9 g compliant (a military aircraft for example), free from flutter, fatigue, and damage tolerant,
 2 CURRENT AIRCRAFT CAPABILITIES 87

FIG. 1
Wing control device scheme: 1. winglet, 2. outer aileron, 3. inner aileron, 4. flap track fairing, 5. slat, 6. slat, 7. flap,
8. flap, 9. spoiler, 10. spolier.

able to support hard points and still maintain all subsystems within the wing is not easy from industry
point of view unless we consider the classic change of shape obtained through standard control devices.
To better understand the current interest of aircraft industries around morphing technology, it is
necessary to clarify what the market requests are: military and civil needs are, in most cases, profoundly
different. To meet the military’s need, it would be perfect to have an aircraft able to perform in all
different “permissive” and “not permissive” scenarios.
Obtaining such a machine from industry could overshadow the cost of design, production, and cer-
tification, as well as any high operating costs.
Civil aircraft industry is different, because from one side, operators do not have such demanding
requests, and from the other side, industry is aware that the selling price and developing time frame are
of paramount importance.

2.1 INTEREST OF INDUSTRY

During the last decades, morphing is back again on the table of aircraft industry, mainly for the fol-
lowing reasons:

1. Renewed need to increase efficiency and reduce emissions of commercial aircraft.

2. A more urgent request by different governments to raise the security level of territory using a
multirole aircraft.
3. Improved capabilities in compliant structures that foresee simpler, more robust and safety critical
shape-changing mechanisms.

For commercial-aircraft designers, the next step in aerodynamic efficiency could come from more slen-
der, lower-drag wings, but these would be flexible and require active control to suppress flutter and
alleviate loads. This implies variable-camber trailing edges that are in motion throughout the flight
and not just on takeoff and landing.
Another big increase in efficiency could come from low-drag laminar flow, but this requires leading
edges that move seamlessly, without gaps to disturb the flow.
88 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

2.2 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT INDUSTRY AERODYNAMIC DESIGN PROCESS

Even if several approaches to morph wings are currently being studied, the most current techniques
focus on a single methodology (sweep, dihedral, twist, or span motion). Variable sweep allows a pilot
to control the speed of an aircraft, and is particularly useful for dash maneuvers and high speed flight.
The dihedral motion refers to the upward angle of a wing; a positive angle affects the lateral stability of
an aircraft around its roll axis, whereas a negative angle increases maneuverability. The twist of a wing
allows for greater control over aerodynamic forces, helping to maintain a level body. Finally, the wing
span affects aspect ratio and wing loading, which enables optimization for specific flight regimes.
Wing morphing concepts are classified into three major types [3]:

1. Planform alternation.
2. Out-of-plane transformation.
3. Airfoil adjustment.

The planform alternation is performed through the wing area resizing by changing parameters including the
span, chord length, and sweep angle. The out-of-plane transformation include the wing twist, the chord, and
spanwise camber changes. The airfoil adjustment regroup designs that can alter the wing profile with no
significant change in the wing camber; the wing thickness control comes under this category (Fig. 2).
Aerodynamic wing design, in common aircraft industry practice, is essentially still based on the
idea to optimize, as much as possible, just a single mission scenario. Small aircraft original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs), with limited resources in respect to the “big sisters,” try to directly optimize
only one flight condition, usually the cruise. For different types of aircraft, having different structures,
speed, cruise altitude, operative range, comfort level, weight and cost, in-flight wing geometric vari-
ations could allow multirole missions that are impossible without aircraft reconfiguration.

Morphing wing shape

Planform alteration Airfoil profile adjustment Out of plane transformation

Span change Chordwise

bending

Chord length Spanwise

change bending

Sweep angle Wing

change twisting

FIG. 2
Morphing wing shape classification [3].
 2 CURRENT AIRCRAFT CAPABILITIES 89

FIG. 3
True wing control device overview.

A rational compromise that tries to mitigate the real difficulty in having a so called “adaptive wing,”
that ideally tries to incorporate as many morphing wing capabilities as possible is in fact to accept only
one optimal condition.
Conventional aircraft (whether civil or military) use mechanisms to discretely change the wing
area in different flight configurations. These configurations include takeoff, climb, cruise, and land-
ing. Glenn Curtiss [4] started using hinged flaps as ailerons mainly because the Wrights’ continually
flexing wooden wing could lead to structural failure. Since then aviation has been wedded to these
hinged control surfaces: rudders, elevators, flaps, ailerons, and spoilers all work on this kind of prin-
ciple, changing the shape of the wing or tail to help the aircraft move in a particular direction (see
Fig. 3). The discrete shape change is achieved by extending or retracting flaps, slats, tabs, or ailerons
to either modify the wing area and the airfoil camber for additional lift or the aircraft controllability
characteristics.
Often, in common practice, several aspects must be considered (i.e., wing deflection, inspection and
accessibility problems, regulation rules for safety, actuation, and so on) which make a simple instal-
lation quite complicated. Morphing aircraft technology can provide a solution to those problems by
developing adaptive structures that can carry out multiple objectives and control aircraft during flight,
take-off, and landing.
90 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

2.3 EXPECTED PERFORMANCE TARGETS

Adaptive morphing can essentially be used both in flight for maneuvers and to increase performance.
This dual aspect will require the morphing to be considered as a “primary” system for certification
purposes, and certainly will need to work together with a “fly by wire” system. Expectation and the
efforts to obtain these results is remarkable. Particular attention will be made on the reliability of
the complete system. For certification purposes, it will be necessary to demonstrate the redundancy
of the actuation system, in line with the fail-safe design philosophy.
Several methods exist to increase efficiency of different flight aspects of an aircraft through chang-
ing the aerodynamic characteristics of the wing. Firstly, changing the span or the aspect ratio of the
aircraft wing alters aircraft lift characteristics and stealth characteristics for military aircraft. Secondly,
loitering can be performed more efficiently by changing the airfoil shape through drooping the wings,
increasing the airfoil camber, or twisting the wing. Performing any of these changes by morphing dur-
ing a mission would give increased efficiency in the loiter stage [5].
In particular, Raymer [6] lists five fundamental aerodynamic features that strongly determine air-
craft performance.
These parameters are: wing loading (denoted as W/S, the ratio of aircraft weight, W, to wing ref-
erence area, S); wing thickness-to-chord ratio (denoted as t/c); wing planform taper (denoted as λ, the
ratio of wing tip chord to wing root chord); wing span (denoted as b); and wing sweep (denoted
as Λ) [7].
The change of each wing geometric characteristic (i.e., span, aspect ratio, sweep, taper ratio, t/c,
camber) has influence on several aircraft parameters, such as:

(1) Maximum speed.

(2) Range.
(3) Landing distance.
(4) Take off distance.
(5) Maneuverability.
(6) State change effectiveness.

It is quite easy to state that main changes in these parameters are essentially affected by variations of
span, sweep, and camber. Considering aircraft performance parameters such as range and endurance, it
can be shown that these parameters are strongly dependent on CL/CD and C3/2 L /CD, respectively. Fur-
thermore, these ratios are directly proportional to wing aspect ratio.
It is thus obvious that an increase in wing aspect ratio will result in a rise of both endurance and
range. Therefore, by tailoring the wing geometry through morphing concepts, its lift and drag charac-
teristics can be adjusted to a variety of missions or flight segments.

2.4 MANUFACTURING: NEW MATERIALS AND CONTROLLED INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES

Conventional aircraft operating temperature conditions are usually between +80°C (i.e., standing on
the tarmac in desert airfield), and
55°C (i.e., at cruise altitude level). These conditions are already
taken into consideration in normal a/c design to validate the safety of all structural parts. Particular
attention must be made to the use of composite materials that are generally very sensitive to temper-
ature changes and significantly alter mechanical characteristics. It is obvious, that, external wing
 2 CURRENT AIRCRAFT CAPABILITIES 91

FIG. 4
Example of morphing mechanism inside leading edge.

surfaces or, in general, coating parts that can morph their shape and dimensions must be manufactured
with materials suitable for large deformations. This will soon imply an increasingly massive use of
composite materials, in particular of elastomers (thermosetting or thermoplastic).
A lot has already been done, especially in the space field, but aeronautical standards are very dif-
ferent, and sometimes very far away, in terms of requirements from them.
A big effort will be necessary for the chemical industry to produce composite materials to reach
desired needs. Only the new material generation can be the real “game changer.”
For aeronautical standards, it is absolutely mandatory to have a deep production process control,
able to always guarantee the same quality in parts production (Fig. 4).
The actual state of art today says that composite material parts are not so easy to manage from this
point of view. Therefore a significant step forward in this direction is absolutely required to reach the
desired target. New production processes must be assessed in detail, evaluating time, cost, and
related risks.
Concerning materials, the last but not the least, is the weight aspect. Light weight structures are
always the primary target for aircraft manufacturers. Density of new materials will be another param-
eter under the magnifying glass.
Another important aspect to take into consideration is the future TRL progress of other parallel
technologies like: additive manufacturing (AM), development of low power actuators, and microme-
chanics with high reliability.

2.5 ASSEMBLY AND QUALITY: AUTOMATION AND INTEGRATED PARTS

The assembly of a complete wing, with systems and control surfaces, is usually quite a complicated and
long process. A large part of this process today is still executed “by hand” with specifically trained
workers, in small a/c OEM. In the coming future, in which, smart wings with integrated morphing sys-
tems will greatly represent the standard, it seems evident to foresee the increase of automation. This
will be in parallel with a high precision assembly of the morphing mechanism, which could be sup-
ported by the introduction of parts made with AM technologies. Having more and more integrated
92 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

structures could result in ease of assembly and reduction of time and error arising from putting together
several mechanical parts.
Therefore, introducing more automation in the assembly process can guarantee a higher safety
level, which is exactly what the aircraft industry always want.
For initial quality, usually a pre in-service inspection is required. Therefore, acceptance criteria are
established for structure with porosity, voids, and disbonds to account for initial quality (flaws) devel-
oped during the manufacturing process. Damage modes such as porosity, voids, and disbonds are sub-
jected to specified acceptance criteria. This initial quality is intrinsic to the manufacturing process and
inspection standards and represent the as-delivered state, and therefore, the structure must meet all re-
quirements of strength, stiffness, safety, and longevity.
The other important aspect to consider is the post in-service inspection, for continued airworthiness
purposes. This is usually based on interpretation of the test results, inspection procedures, threshold
time, and frequency of inspections are established and published in airplane manuals. A factor is ap-
plied to allow for damage to exist over several inspection intervals, depending on the criticality of the
structure. (A further factor may be needed to account for scatter revealed in the flaw growth test
results.)

2.6 MAINTENANCE: ASSESSED STEPS AND PERSONNEL TRAINING

The awareness of operations and service personnel involved is in general a very important aspect from
the industrial point of view. Surely the discussion between a/c manufactures and civil authority will
concern some interesting aspects summarized in the following questions:
How to provide awareness training? What is their current level of education? What is the antici-
pated attention level?
How to ensure they do not act as qualified inspectors? Worried about losing their job if they report
their mistake? What can an a/c OEM do to minimize these problems?
Let’s start with main two recommendations:

• For sure a good start can adopt robust design criteria (including, for instance, impact damage
resistance).
• Personnel in positions of responsibility first need education on what level of events can cause
damage beyond that protected by scheduled maintenance and existing source documentation.

Even if a path to a solution is not unique and probably not yet defined, it is not difficult to indicate a
following approach that can indicate what required levels of safety management are needed for struc-
ture design, maintenance, and operation awareness.

• Damaging events outside the scope of those considered in design must be of a magnitude that
ensures it will be reported (i.e., designs to sufficient impact damage resistance and damage
tolerance).
• Simple training is needed to ensure that aircraft service personnel are not to blame with essential
“reporting” role of operations.
• Source documentation should reinforce training for line maintenance and structural engineers to
realize that disposition of such events is beyond scheduled maintenance and inspection/repair
 2 CURRENT AIRCRAFT CAPABILITIES 93

procedures typically outlined in the structures repair manual (SRM; e.g., exterior visual ADL will
not apply).
In addition, it could be useful to follow some conditional inspections and dispositions. For instance:
• The Aircraft Maintenance Manual should contain instructions for conditional inspections to be
performed following a collision (both in flight or on ground).
• Exterior instrumented NDI at point of contact and adjacent supporting structure will be needed.
• Interior detailed visual inspection will also help determine the severity of the damage.
It could be that disposition of damage and repair may be beyond the procedures documented in the
SRM and that is why additional structural design and process substantiation may be needed (i.e., com-
bination of analysis and tests to address fatigue, damage tolerance, static strength, etc.).
Another two aspects that must be carefully evaluated and could give the “go—no go” for industri-
alization are: the behavior of used composite material and morphing systems with respect to fuel ab-
sorption (i.e., usually the wing is filled with fuel) and galvanic corrosion which usually occurs at
interfaces where carbon fibers and metals are in contact.

2.7 SAFETY: ASSESSED METHODS FOR STANDARD ARCHITECTURES

A winning strategy to attract interest from industries to research results, is of course, to correctly assess
safety, while considering CS/FAA regulations. This can show main problems to face and solve, in a
multidisciplinary complex system such as morphing. In general design philosophy will not change
from the latest approach commonly used by aircraft industries: “damage tolerance” together with
“fail safe” will lead the process.
Attention must not only be paid to design and analysis of the undamaged structure, but mainly to the
assessment of damage influenced by the strength and durability characteristics with particular refer-
ence to a/c airframe, within analyses and certification process of composite adaptive parts.
In metallic structures, damage tolerance is demonstrated using fracture mechanics to characterize
crack growth under cyclic loading, predict the rate of crack growth in the structure under anticipated
service loads, and establish inspection intervals based on realistic damage detection reliability consid-
erations. Since typical CFRP composites have relatively flat S-N curves, and because these damages do
not propagate under aircraft operational loading spectra, the previous approach cannot be used to es-
tablish inspection plans. Therefore, a no-growth approach is used to demonstrate compliance with dam-
age tolerance requirements for composite primary structures.
In fact, damage tolerance provides a measure of the structural ability to sustain design loads with a
level of damage or defect and be able to perform its operating functions [8].
Particularly interesting are the following steps for approaching the discussion between research and
industry:
1. Agree on critical technical issues and areas of safety concern for damage tolerance and
maintenance of composite adaptive structures.
2. Identify key similarities and differences in methods used for justifying damage capability for both
CS23 and CS25 class aircraft composite adaptive structures.
3. Identify the key elements necessary for justifying maintenance inspection and repair procedures
for composite aircraft adaptive structures.
94 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

4. Identify related content needed to update appropriate approved source (OEM) documentation
(Design Manual, SRM, etc.) focused on field safety issues.
5. Identify areas for safety-related standardization of composite damage tolerance, maintenance, and
related research needed in the future.
Damage tolerance assessments involve the application of known damage threats to the aircraft structure
during its typical service usage and demonstration that this damage will not alter the safe operation of
the aircraft prior to detection. Damage tolerance builds upon fail-safe analysis by including determi-
nations of damage growth characteristics and by establishing damage detection methods and
inspection plans.
The aircraft industry traditionally uses the “building block” approach to demonstrate the damage
tolerance capability of critical fracture airframe structures. In the building block approach, one would
run different levels of tests in concert with damage tolerance analysis. Because there are many impact
threat events, such as tool drop, runway debris, hail, lighting strikes, etc., in the operation of an aircraft,
impact damage is the predominant “defect” to be considered. The minimal environmental deterioration
and fatigue damage leaves accidental damage as a primary damage source in composite structures.
Therefore, in parallel, it would also be necessary to develop criteria to identify “adaptive primary
structures” for damage tolerance evaluation (i.e., wing, empennage, flap, aileron, spoiler, etc.). Differ-
ent types of composite adaptive structures will be identified with a particular category to enable its
specific program to be developed.
Damage from manufacturing processes, accidental damage from assembly and handling, and ac-
cidental damage from in-service operation will be defined.
From each of these sources, the modes (porosity, delamination, puncture, core crush, etc.) of dam-
age will be identified.
For each mode of damage, criteria will be established for determining characteristics such as initial size,
threshold of detectability, critical size, and whether growth during spectrum loading will be produced.
The critical modes of loading for composite adaptive structures will be identified for purposes of
selecting principal structural elements and for developing appropriate testing requirements. Require-
ments for static testing of structural elements with various modes of damage and various modes of
loading will be defined to provide residual strength information.
Requirements for cyclic testing of structural elements with various modes of damage and various
modes of loading will be defined to provide damage growth (or no growth) information (Fig. 5).
Requirements for cyclic testing of important full-scale components will be defined to verify that
damage would not grow to a critical size in the full-scale article during the life of the airframe. Re-
quirements for static testing of important full-scale components will be defined to verify that they
would carry required loads with any damage growth inflicted from cyclic loading. In addition, appro-
priate testing will be identified to validate analyses methods used and to demonstrate certification
requirements.
Of course, damage threats must be correctly identified, with particular attention to: hail impact,
lightning strike, bird strike, tire debris, rotor debris, runway debris, fire, and maintenance process. Un-
fortunately, today, some threats that are not in common:
• reference standards
• test protocols
• statistical basis
 2 CURRENT AIRCRAFT CAPABILITIES 95

Regulation

Building
block In service
approach experience

Analysis :
Test results fatigue/DT
evaluation

FIG. 5
Damage tolerance approach.

Therefore, investigation is still required in this direction. Damage inspection and detection will be the
next step once a common strategy is defined for identification. It will in fact be necessary to define
appropriate metrics associated with damage types.
The impact threat for use in the damage tolerance assessment must be defined. All possible low
velocity impact sources for the structure in question (e.g., tool drop during maintenance, collision with
ground based equipment…) have to be considered. A probabilistic definition can be used for the impact
sources defining impact severity (impact energy) and probability rate (per flight hour). The probability
density function is expressed in terms of probability rate for occurrence of an impact with energy
greater than or equal to a given energy (Ej).
The impact threat must be validated by comparison to in-service damage incidents. Typically, a
survey of damage on an in-service aircraft component should be carried out. The severity of such dam-
age needs to be quantified in terms of impact energy. This can be carried out by establishing and ap-
plying an appropriate calibration relationship, which relates observed damage dent size to impact
energy. It is necessary to show that the highest impact energy seen in-service does not occur more fre-
quently than the impact threat definition to be used in the analysis. This has led to a proposed impact
threat of general form:
Pj ðE30 J Þ¼10
5 =fh

Ej

x
15
pj E  Ej ¼ 10 Pi ðE90 J Þ¼10
9 =fh

In this equation, P is the probability (per flight hour) of occurrence of an impact of energy greater than
or equal to Ej. The value x relates to the probability (per flight hour) of occurrence of impact events of
any energy (10
x per flight hour).
Initial damages (due to impact) must be considered by integrating their influence on the probability
of existence of damage at the end of the manufacturing and assembly phases. This can be done through
the description of potential impact sources during the different steps of manufacturing and assembly:
tool drop, fall of control apparatus, etc. It is known that damage during manufacturing and assembly
96 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

phases can have a negligible influence regarding the global risk at the last flight hour. Nevertheless the
influence of the initial damage on the global risk of failure must be checked. The use of an impact threat
derived from in-service threat (based on in-service survey and/or engineering judgment) can inherently
cover damage caused by impacts prior to entry into service. Once the impact threat is defined, energy
thresholds can be deduced.
The basis of the probabilistic approach is therefore to demonstrate that the inspection program will
ensure that the combination of an occurrence of a load k*LL intensity, with the presence of a missed
accidental damage reducing the structure strength to k*LL level, remains acceptable. This combination
must be extremely improbable (probability <10
9 per flight hour).
Therefore this analysis involves the combination of three probabilities function:
• The probability rate of occurrence of external loads.
• The distribution of residual strength of the structure damaged by any given impact energy.
• The maximum probability over design life (DSG) for undetected damage.

3 CURRENT AND EXPECTED NEEDS

Advantages of morphing are paid off (sometime too much) by complexity of both systems and struc-
ture, as well as weight increase. Aircraft maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) is a sum of three different
weight components:
MTOW ¼ OEW + WFUEL + WPAYLOAD
And it is defined as the heaviest weight at which the aircraft has been shown to meet all the airwor-
thiness requirements applicable to it.
Therefore, an increase of morphing systems and structure weight has direct influence on aircraft
operative empty weight (OEW). In fact, once MTOW is fixed, an increment of OEW means a fuel
quantity reduction.
The aerodynamic advantages coming from the adaptive wing, unfortunately, are not always able to
compensate for the reduction of endurance coming from fuel quantity reduction. One of the most fa-
mous examples is the F-111 equipped with an adaptive wing (Fig. 6).
Therefore, it is quite clear that industries could hardly accept such disadvantages. Long endurance is
one of the issues that become more central with the increasing development of RPAS. It is clear that
morphing technology must also answer in this direction for a direct market requirement.
On the other hand for civil markets, we can say that the cost of morphing systems that even highly
affect the aircraft sale cost, may not be a binding parameter for the success of the final product, but on
condition, have low operating costs. These latter are of primary importance and are carefully evaluated
by operators. It is clear that civil markets still play around weight and cost. In the military field, per-
formance prevails on both sale and operative cost.

3.1 TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION

Once aerodynamic performances’ “pay-offs” are clear (including benefits in terms of fuel consump-
tion), it is necessary to start discussing about the impact that morphing technologies have on aircraft
structures. From an industrial point of view, it is necessary to evaluate correctly when a technology
transition is possible. Mainly five factors must be taken into account:
 3 CURRENT AND EXPECTED NEEDS 97

FIG. 6
F-111 with adaptive wing during experimental flight.

1. Stabilized material and processes.

2. Producibility: manufacturing scale-up.
3. Characterized mechanical properties.
4. Predictability of structural performance.
5. Supportability.

• As already previously stated, it is necessary to still invest on material development and screening
that can give the possibility of expected benefits.
• Also, manufacturing must be evaluated taking into account the process of scaling-up, acceptance
criteria, facility assessment, manufacturing methods development, and producibility.
• Once suitable materials for the application have been found, the certification approach assumes
materials for structural components must be qualified (i.e., statistical B basis characterization as a
function of temperature, moisture, damage, defect, and fatigue), as well as a developed production
process.
• Numerical analysis of new scenarios must show the possibility to correctly predict the structural
performance with good correlation to testing.
• For certification purposes, it is absolutely mandatory to demonstrate the reliability of structure (and,
in this case, of the system as well). But this is not enough to evaluate the supportability. It is
absolutely important to have ease of reparability and maintainability.

3.2 A MISSION CONFIGURABLE WING

An aircraft wing that can mimic a bird wing morphing ability would be able to perform dissimilar
missions.
Fighter aircraft or unmanned aerial vehicles could have multiple roles including reconnaissance,
fighting and heavy bombing with an increased stealth capability. Commercial aircraft could smoothly
98 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

FIG. 7
Some interesting morphing concepts.

adapt wings for high lift during takeoff and landing, fully extending them for optimum cruising, and
slightly folding them for an efficient descent (Fig. 7).

3.3 IMPROVED FLAPS AND AILERONS

Adaptive compliant wings able to morph at the position where normally flaps and aileron are installed,
could be a great advantage especially for aircraft with a high wingspan that sacrifice performance in-
stead of weight. Probably, in this case, the best examples are Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System (UAS),
that could improve performance especially during takeoff and landing as well as overtaking some dif-
ficulties in these two phases when weather conditions are not optimal, and reducing required runway
length (Fig. 8).
By definition, compliant mechanisms are single-piece flexible structures that deliver the desired
motion by undergoing elastic deformation as opposed to jointed rigid body motions of conventional
mechanisms [9,10]. This means joint less structures, easy to assemble, monolithic mechanical devices.
Advantages of compliant mechanics include a reduced complexity, zero backlash and wear, sub-
micron accuracy, and embedded actuation and sensing devices.

FIG. 8
Adaptive compliant trailing edge.
 4 MORPHING AS A SOLUTION 99

Disadvantages could be that power needed by the actuators (electric or pneumatic) to overcome
stiffness of structure are too high to take full advantage of the morphing concept.

4 MORPHING AS A SOLUTION
Certainly, many solutions are feasible, although some may be impractical both from the weight point of
view, or from the cost point of view. As previously stated, each solution must always be assessed, con-
sidering the possibility of inspection and reparability. Let us briefly review some of the key aspects of
major interest that is inherent to both wing and control surfaces.

4.1 WING AND CONTROL SURFACE FEASIBLE SOLUTIONS

Table 1 summarizes the wing parts, actuation types and skin types that are involved in morphing fea-
sible solutions.

4.2 SOME SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

Without detailed evaluation of test results for each possible solution, it is only possible to list a range of
variations of parameters of particular interest, it would be convenient to have a variation of some a/c
characteristic.

Table 1 Morphing Concepts, Actuation and Skin Types

Structural Part Morphed Aspects Actuation Types Skin Types

Wing Sweep Pneumatic Rigid segmented

Linear actuator Stretchable
Electric
DC motor
Wing Span Pneumatic Rigid segmented
Linear actuator Stretchable
Servo motor
DC motor
Wing, flap, aileron Chord Pneumatic Stretchable
Linear actuator Flexible
Servo motor
Shape memory alloys
Wing, flap, aileron Camber Pneumatic Rigid segmented
Servo motor Stretchable
Shape memory alloys Flexible
Lead zirconate titanate
Ultrasonic
Wing, flap, aileron Twist Shape memory alloys Rigid segmented
Electrical Stretchable
Lead zirconate titanate Flexible
Pneumatic
DC motor
100 CHAPTER 2 AIRCRAFT MORPHING—AN INDUSTRY VISION

It is clear that more flexibility in the configuration change, given the considerable diversity of the
type of mission, is always required for military aircraft, whether they are piloted on board or remotely
controlled.
For example, it might be useful to have a change in aspect ratio between 150% and 200%, 60%–
80% change in area, 40%–60% change in span, while independently controlling the sweep and area,
and a wing sweep varying from 15 to 35 degrees. An increase between 30% and 40% in the aerody-
namic efficiency from cruise flight to the loiter configuration for surveillance missions would be really
advantageous.
With this kind of flexibility for change of aircraft configurations, it could be possible to combine the
loiter endurance of a surveillance platform with the high-speed dash capability of an attack aircraft.
The requirements for the weight of the system and structure might be more stringent, as previously
explained. They should be contained in the range of 2%–5% compared to an equivalent classic con-
figuration, to avoid placing an undue burden on performance.

5 CONCLUSIONS
Today, morphing of primary structural aircraft parts is neither the industry standard nor a compelling
need, but without it, it is impossible to design, manufacture, and sell airplanes.
It is clear that the desire of each aircraft manufacturer, whether large or small, civil or military, will
always be able to provide an innovative, secure, and competitive product for the market.
The world around us requires that the horizon of research and industry come closer. The more they
will be able to communicate, the more they will be able to exchange vital information to meet
our needs.
Ideally, a morphing structure should be able to alter its shape, carry the required load, and be light-
weight at the same time. Today it is still difficult to accomplish these three aspects simultaneously.
Therefore, the goal of current and future research is to develop particular devices, and to use innovative
materials, that can enable morphing through shape-changing airframes whose variation in geometry
will significantly influence aerodynamic performance as well as stealth characteristics for military ap-
plications. There will be little opportunity that industry will massively invest in this kind of technology
without matching these three aspects together while considering the cost and weight limitation.
The innovation derived from the introduction of morphing aircraft part, passes through a combi-
nation of other technologies that must be mature enough to be taken into consideration at industry level.
The military sector will provide the greater thrust and implementation. This is especially true be-
cause, these technologies can potentially provide very flexible and effective solutions to deal with cur-
rent requests to raise and strengthen the security and surveillance measures.
As previously mentioned, there will be several challenges in the design of morphing aircraft, in
particular:

1. The integrity of compliant structures must be ensured under all circumstances.

2. The system should be designed so that the required actuation force falls within the adequate limits.
Thus, the morphing can occur efficiently.
3. The wing skin should provide a smooth and seamless aerodynamic surface while efficiently bearing
the aerodynamic loads.
 REFERENCES 101

4. The design process should be extended to encompass multiple flight regimes.

5. The control systems should be efficient even with highly coupled control effectors.

Thus, the main challenge faced by morphing technology is to design, fabricate, and operate effective
integrated combinations of deformable wing skins, actuators and mechanisms, and flight controls to
provide the morphing system designer with the freedom to deal with future diverse, conflicting vehicle
mission capabilities [11].
The dream to mimic bird wings is not far, but a lot must still be done to reach that target. To get
closer to the objective, it will be necessary to deepen investigations of flexibile wings with anisotropy
and nonlinear membrane elasticity to a high degree.

REFERENCES
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Mater. Des. 31 (3) (2010) 1284–1292.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Curtiss.
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University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2004.
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[8] MIL-HDBK-17-3F.
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aircraft, 17th International Conference on Adaptive Structures and Technologies Oct. 16  Oct. 19, Taipei,
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