Application of the Active Camber Morphing Concept Based on Compliant Structures to a Regional Aircraft

The present work addresses the optimal design of a morphing mechanism based on compliant structures used to implement the active camber morphing concept. The subject of the work is part of the FP7-NOVEMOR project (Novel Air Vehicle Configurations: From Fluttering Wings to Morphing Flight) which is one of the many projects from the seventh European Framework Programme. The implementation of active camber concept is based on the use of conformable morphing control surfaces. Aiming at the optimal design of such as morphing devices, two dedicated tools called PHORMA and SPHERA, respectively, are introduced. The definition of the optimal shape taking into account both aerodynamic and structural constraints is done by PHORMA. Then SPHERA, based on the load path approach codified by coupling a non linear beam solver to a genetic multi-objective optimizer, is adopted to generate the optimal internal structure able to produce, when loaded, the target optimal shape. The paper is mainly focused on the optimal design of the compliant structures starting from the optimal shape already available for a Reference Aircraft (RA) developed inside NOVEMOR project and representative of a typical regional jet capable to carry 113 PAX in a single economic class.