Wing design opens the envelope

Technology presented at ACE describes a design process for a light-weight wing with an aerodynamic shape that is optimal for a large part of the cruise flight.

In January 2002, the DLR (German Aerospace Center) Institutes of Structural Mechanics and Design Aerodynamics in collaboration with the Institute of Aeroelasticity of the University of Aachen started a project called AWiTech (Adaptive Wing Technologies). The goal of this project was to design a wing for a transport aircraft with an aerodynamically optimized flying shape for larger parts of the cruise flight.

Current transport aircraft have an optimum design point, normally around the middle of the design envelope, defined by a certain aircraft weight, Mach number, and altitude. At all other flight conditions the aircraft flies outside its optimum. With an advanced structural layout of the wing using aeroelastic tailoring, it is possible to expand this ideal flight configuration to a larger part of the cruise flight, so that the wing remains in an optimal shape, even with decreasing weight due to fuel consumption.