Smart Twisting Active Rotor (STAR) Program Overview: Past and Present

Abstract

An overview of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) active twist rotor program will be given. Itl provides a brief sketch of active twist rotor technology evolution at DLR, followed by more detail on the content of work within the STAR program. For testing in the LLF of the DNW wind tunnel international participation was invited, leading to the STAR team consisting of DLR, NASA/AFDD, Onera, DNW, JAXA, KARI and Konkuk University. The prediction activity aimed at identifying the most beneficial active twist control in numerous operating conditions, thus reducing the test matrix to the most important cases and findings will be presented. The pre-test at DLR BS will be described and the causes of cancellation of the DNW test addressed. Finally, current testing results and future perspectives will be given based on most recent failure investigations and analysis.