DLR's Morphing Wing Activities within the European Network

Smart Structures technology called Adaptronics in Germany covers the entire field of making the elastomechanical behaviour of structures adaptable. The main objectives are vibration control, noise reduction and shape control. The latter is directly related to morphing of airframes, thus being a focus of DLR's aeronautical research program. DLR initiated the national morphing wing activities in the mid-nineties with research projects on morphing wing trailing egdes. The lessons learned where exploited continuously in different national and international projects up today. The research covers the most relevant application scenarios of morphing like smart trailing egde, smart winglet, or smart leading egde including the smart slat. Presently the gapless droop nose for laminar wings of future civil transport aircrafts is in the focus of the investigations at DLR in collaboration with European partners. This paper gives a survey of the related national and international activities where DLR has been involved in since the mid-nineties and elaborates the challenge of designing morphing wing structures, i.e. to provide flexibility for the deformation and stiffness for carrying high loads at the same time.