Optimization, design and structural testing of a high deformable morphing leading edge of an active blown high lift system

Abstract

The future generation of high lift devices hast to play a part in reducing the noise footprint and increasing the performance for start and landing of transport aircrafts. To contribute to these goals, an active blown Coandă-flap based high lift system is investigated within the German national Collaborative Research Centre 880 as an alternative to the state of the art slats and flaps. A key part of this system is an adaptive gapless droop nose with an exceedingly high grade of leading edge morphing. The design and construction of this component is based on a structural optimization framework, developed at German Aerospace Center (DLR). The framework consists of two hierarchical design steps, an optimization of the hybrid composite skin layout with integral T-stringers, acting as joints to the inner actuation mechanism and the kinematic optimization of the latter. This paper describes a full scale hybrid composite morphing droop nose and its structural tests. The results of these tests will finally be compared with the results of the finite element simulation and applied for the validation of the optimization framework.