Design aspects of the adaptive wing - the elastic trailing edge and the local spoiler bump

Market research predicts a large growth in numbers of passengers as well as airfreight volume for the aircraft industry. An expected concomitant incre ase in competition for the European aircraft industry demands that the effi ciency of new aircraft has to be drastically improved. One approach to achi eve this is the aerodynamic optimisation of the wing. The fixed wing is des igned optimally only for one flight condition. This flight condition is des cribed by the parameters altitude, Mach number and aircraft weight which va ry continuously during the mission of the aircraft. Therefore, the aircraft is just periodically near the chosen design point. To compensate for this major disadvantage, an adaptive wing for optimal adaptation and variation o f the profile geometry to the actual flight conditions is under development . DaimlerChrysler Aerospace Airbus, DaimlerChrysler Research and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) are working as project partners on concepts for a v ariable camber and a local spoiler bump. In this paper structural concepts developed by the German Aerospace Centre for both objectives will be presen ted. The concepts are designed under the aspect of adaptive structural syst ems and require a high integration of actuators, sensors and controllers in the structure. Special aspects of the design will be discussed and first r esults, analytical, numerical as well as experimental, will be presented. P art of the concept design is also the development of new actuators optimise d for the specific problem. A new actuator concept for the spoiler bump bas ed on a cylindrical tube and activated either by pressure or multifunctiona l materials (e.g. shape memory alloys) will additionally be shown.