Session: 04-06: Morphing Aerospace Applications

Paper Number: 114990

114990 - Smartx: Intelligent Wings Enabling More Sustainable Aviation 

Making aviation more sustainable means we need breakthroughs in many aeronautical disciplines simultaneously. One of these disciplines is innovative wing design. Such a design can reduce drag and alleviate loads and hence reduce mass. Reduced drag and reduced mass lead to lower energy consumption during flight which reduces greenhouse gas emissions and enables the use of sustainable but lower energy-density energy carriers.

We will present the intelligent wing of the future concept that was developed at the Delft University of Technology within the SmartX project. This wing can sense its own structural and flow state and take autonomous decisions by using nonlinear AI control algorithms to actively change its static and dynamic shape by using distributed morphing control surfaces to reduce drag and alleviate loads. The wing is equipped with piezoelectric flow sensors, fibre optic shape sensing, morphing control surfaces for large-scale slow morphing deformations for performance improvements and manoeuvre load alleviation and piezoelectric benders at the trailing edge for fast morphing for gust load alleviation.

The SmartX project philosophy and the past, ongoing, and future research activities regarding design and bench, wind tunnel and flight testing will be introduced. Important results that have already been obtained will be presented and discussed, as well as the roadmap for future activities.

Presenting Author: Roeland De Breuker Delft University of Technology

Presenting Author Biography: Roeland De Breuker is an associate professor at the Delft University of Technology. He is also Director of Research at the Department of Aerospace Structures and Materials. He specialises in the field of smart and aeroelastic structures. He focuses on developing analysis tools, optimisation and design of structures and related bench and wind tunnel experiments for code validation and proofs of concept. His research activities range from technology readiness levels 1-4. While employed at the Delft University of Technology, he had former experiences with three-month visits to the DLR in Göttingen, Germany and Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. He was also a visiting professor at Airbus Group Innovations in Munich, Germany, for half a year.

Roeland De Breuker is involved in multiple European and Dutch government-funded projects, as well as industry-funded projects, in the research fields of smart and aeroelastic structures. He is (co-)advising 20 PhD students, he graduated 12 PhD students as (co-) promotor and is advising/has advised over 70 MSc students. He currently holds 58 refereed journal papers and three patents.