Aircraft

Aircraft wings that change shape mid flight and flex like a birds – MIT and NASA

Published

7 years ago

April 3, 2019

A ‘morphing wing’ system that is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic and assembled by small robots.

Each of these flight scenarios, takeoff, landing, cruising and maneuvering etc, has its own set of optimal wing shapes. A conventional fixed wing aircraft (one shape) is a compromise that is not optimized for any of these, and therefore sacrifices efficiency and fuel usage. A wing that could alter its shape during operation could provide the best configuration at each stage of flight.

With this in mind a team of engineers built and tested a radically new kind of airplane wing, assembled from hundreds of tiny identical pieces. The wing can change shape to control the plane’s flight, and would provide a significant boost in aircraft production, flight, and maintenance efficiency, the researchers say.

nasa-mit-shape-shifting-airplane-wing — Eli Gershenfeld, NASA Ames Research Center

Instead of requiring separate movable surfaces such as ailerons to control the roll and pitch of the plane, as conventional wings do, the new assembly system makes it possible to deform the whole wing, or just sections of it, by incorporating a mix of stiff and flexible components in its structure. The tiny sub-assemblies, which are bolted together to form an open, lightweight lattice framework, are then covered with a thin layer of similar polymer material as the skin.

The result is a wing that is much lighter, and thus much more energy efficient, than those with conventional designs, whether made from metal or composites. Because the structure, comprising thousands of tiny triangles of matchstick-like struts, is composed mostly of empty space, it forms a mechanical “metamaterial” that combines the structural stiffness of a rubber-like polymer and the extreme lightness and low density of an aerogel.

mit-morphing-wing-madcat project — Tiny pieces placed together to form metamaterial eventually done by robots Credit: MIT

While this version was hand-assembled by a team of graduate students, the repetitive process is designed to be easily accomplished by a swarm of small, simple autonomous assembly robots. The design and testing of the robotic assembly system is the subject of an upcoming paper, Jenett says.

Because the overall configuration of the wing or other structure is built up from tiny subunits, it really doesn’t matter what the shape is. “You can make any geometry you want,” he says. “The fact that most aircraft are the same shape” (essentially a tube with wings) “is because of expense. It’s not always the most efficient shape.” But due to massive investments in design, tooling, and production it has been easier to stay with long established configurations up to this point.

The individual parts for the wing uses injection molding with polyethylene resin in a complex 3-D mold, and produces each part. These are essentially a hollow cube made up of matchstick sized struts along each edge made in just 17 seconds, he says, which brings it a long way closer to scalable production levels.

nasa-madcat-morphing-wing-individual-piece

“Now we have a manufacturing method,” he says. While there’s an upfront investment in tooling, once that’s done, “the parts are cheap,” he says. “We have boxes and boxes of them, all the same.”

The resulting lattice, he says, has a density of 5.6 kilograms per cubic meter. By way of comparison, rubber has a density of about 1,500 kilograms per cubic meter. “They have the same stiffness, but ours has less than roughly one-thousandth of the density,” Jenett says.

The new approach to wing construction could afford greater flexibility in the design and manufacturing of future aircraft. The new wing design was tested in a NASA wind tunnel and is described today in a paper in the journal Smart Materials and Structures, co-authored by research engineer Nicholas Cramer at NASA Ames in California; MIT alumnus Kenneth Cheung SM ’07 PhD ’12, now at NASA Ames; Benjamin Jenett, a graduate student in MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms; and eight others.

While it is possible to include motors and cables to produce the forces needed to deform the wings, the team has taken this a step further and designed a system that automatically responds to changes in its aerodynamic loading conditions by shifting its shape — a sort of self-adjusting wing.

This is all accomplished by the careful design of the relative positions of struts with different amounts of flexibility or stiffness, designed so that the wing, or sections of it, bend in specific ways in response to particular kinds of stresses.

Cheung and others demonstrated the basic underlying principle a few years ago, producing a wing about a meter long, comparable to the size of typical remote-controlled model aircraft. The new version, about five times as long, is comparable in size to the wing of a real single seater plane and could be easy to manufacture.

The same system could be used to make other structures as well, Jenett says, including the wing-like blades of wind turbines, where the ability to do on-site assembly could avoid the problems of transporting ever-longer blades. Similar assemblies are being developed to build space structures, and could eventually be useful for bridges and other high performance structures.

The team included researchers at Cornell University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Santa Cruz, NASA Langley Research Center, Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, and Qualified Technical Services, Inc., in Moffett Field, California. The work was supported by NASA ARMD Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Program (MADCAT Project), and the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms.

Aircraft

Gulfstream Delivers Final G550 Jet To Customer

Published

4 years ago

July 7, 2021

Brenon Melse

The final Gulfstream G550 business jet has been delivered to an international customer, marking an end of an era for the long-range commercial jet.

Gulfstream Makes Final G550 Commercial Delivery

After almost 20 years, Gulfstream has delivered its final G550 commercial jet to an international customer.

Entering service in 2003 as a long-range business jet, the G550 has a range of 6,750 nautical miles (12,501 kilometers) at Mach 0.80 and has broken over 55 speed records during its time of service.

Launched as a commercial jet that could be configured for business, government, or military and seat up to 19 passengers, the G550 is a versatile jet that enables owners to fly between international destinations such as Shanghai to Los Angeles, New York to Dubai, or London to Tokyo.

The Gulfstream G550 also launched the PlaneView™ flight deck platform for the first time and led the way with the certified Enhanced Vision System (now known as the Enhanced Flight Vision System – EFVS) as a standard safety feature for pilot safety.

“For nearly two decades, the G550 has been exceeding customer expectations,” said Mark Burns, president, Gulfstream. “The G550 set a new standard for performance and reliability and continues to outperform and impress with its wide-ranging capabilities. Given our vast G550 fleet in service, we look forward to continuing to support all G550 customers around the world with Gulfstream Customer Support’s extensive network.”

The final delivery, which took place at the end of June, brings the global fleet of Gulfstream G550’s in service to a total of 600 jets.

Aircraft

Aerion Supersonic Jets To Close Operations

Published

4 years ago

May 25, 2021

Brenon Melse

Aerion Supersonic set to close operations after struggling to acquire further funding to produce its AS2 supersonic business jet.

Aerion AS2 supersonic private jet flying — Aerion Supersonic AS2 concept with a top speed of Mach 1.4 may never take to the skies. Credit: Aerion Supersonic

Aerion Supersonic is reportedly set to close operations after failing to secure the considerable capital required to produce its AS2 business jet at its future $300 million planned facilities at Aerion Park, Florida.

Founded in 2004 with backing from Texan billionaire Robert Bass, Aerion Supersonic started as a solution to the 2003 retired Concorde and gained backing and support from organizations like Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, and NASA’s Langley Research Center.

Yet despite raising $11.2 billion in pre-sales, Aerion has struggled to gain the capital needed to bring it to market.

Aerion Park Melbourne Florida — Proposed Aerion Park multi-purpose facility in Florida, USA. Credit: Aerion Supersonic

“The AS2 supersonic business jet program meets all market, technical, regulatory and sustainability requirements, and the market for a new supersonic segment of general aviation has been validated with $11.2 billion in sales backlog for the AS2,” reads the company statement, as stated by Florida Today.

“However, in the current financial environment, it has proven hugely challenging to close on the scheduled and necessary large new capital requirements to finalize the transition of the AS2 into production. Given these conditions, the Aerion Corporation is now taking the appropriate steps in consideration of this ongoing financial environment.”

The Aerion AS2 supersonic business jet — Aerion AS2 supersonic business jet. Credit: Aerion Supersonic

As reported by CNBC in early 2020, Aerion Supersonic revealed it would need around $4 billion to continue developing the AS2 after already spending $1 billion on engine development.

Initially, Aerion Supersonic had intended to launch the 1,000-miles-per-hour jet by 2024 and begin commercial activities by 2026, producing 300 AS2 jets during the first decade of production.

Unless 11th-hour funding is secured, the future of Aerion Supersonic is set to remain indefinitely grounded.

Aircraft

Dassault Launches Falcon 10X With Largest Business Cabin Jet Yet

Published

4 years ago

May 10, 2021

Brenon Melse

Dassault Aviation’s new Falcon 10X Business Jet is a high-speed ultra-long-range jet capable of flying non-stop from New York to Shanghai.

Dassault Falcon 10X Side View — The new Dassault Falcon 10X. Credit: Dassault Aviation

Dassault Aviation’s Falcon 10X Business Jet is a high-speed ultra-long-range jet featuring the largest and most comfortable cabin on a business jet yet.

Said to “deliver a level of comfort, versatility, and technology not yet seen” in terms of cabin size and comfort, the Falcon 10X is looking to rival the likes of the Gulfstream G700 and Bombardier’s Global 7500 when it goes into production end of 2025.

Dassault Falcon 10X Living — Interior cabin configuration of the new Dassault Falcon 10X. Credit: Dassault Aviation

“The 10X will be more than just another big step forward in business aviation. It will be absolutely the best business jet available in the ultra-long-range category and will remain so for a long time,” shared Dassault Chairman and CEO Eric Trappier.

Dassault Falcon 10X Jet Dining — Entertaining spaces aboard the Falcon 10X. Credit: Dassault Falcon

As the first Dassault business jet to be powered by Rolls-Royce Pearl engines, the new Dassault Falcon 10X can achieve a top speed of Mach 0.925 and, with a nautical mile range of 7,500, will be able to fly nonstop from New York to Shanghai, Los Angeles to Sydney, Hong Kong to New York or even Paris to Santiago.

Dassault Falcon 10X Stateroom — Stateroom with queen bed aboard the Falcon 10X. Credit: Dassault Falcon

Created as a “penthouse suite in the sky,” the Dassault Falcon 10X will offer greater modularity than any other aircraft in its class and a selection of multiple interior configurations.

Dassault Falcon 10X Jet Stateroom — Dassault’s “penthouse in the sky”. Credit: Dassault Falcon

The 10X is large enough to accommodate four-cabin zones of equal length, but owners can configure their cabin as they desire to create a living space to best suit their needs, including an expanded dining/conference area, a dedicated entertainment area with a large-screen monitor, a private stateroom with a queen-size bed or an enlarged master suite with a private stand-up shower.

Dassault Falcon 10X Jet Bathroom — Private ensuite bathroom of the stateroom. Credit: Dassault Aviation

“Today we are introducing a new benchmark in business aviation,” said Dassault Chairman and CEO Eric Trappier. “The Falcon 10X will offer an unrivalled passenger experience over both short- and long-duration flights, along with breakthrough safety features from Dassault’s frontline fighter technology. We have optimized every aspect of the aircraft with the passenger in mind and established a new level of capability for ultra-long-range aircraft.”