Aircraft With Wings That Change Shape During Flight Can Reduce Fuel Consumption

A team of engineering researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials has come up with a project called EU SARISTU (short for Smart Intelligent Aircraft Structures) that aims at reducing the airline's fuel consumption amount. With ever-growing traffic of the aircrafts in the skies, the airplane manufacturers have been facing the issue of high kerosene consumption that ultimarely poses a risk to the environment. With SARISTU project, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft researchers researchers have been able to reduce this rate by 6% by integrating flexible landing devices into aircraft wings. The innovative concept of deformable aircraft wings was showcased at the ILA Berlin Air Show 2014.

Till date, unlike birds' feathers, the aircraft wing components have always been rigid. These researchers have developed a mechanism that alters the landing flap’s shape to dynamically accommodate the airflow. They believe that if landing flaps are able to adjust to the air flow, they will significantly enhance the aerodynamics of the aircraft. To control the shape modifications in flight, the system needed strong algorithms, which were programmed by ENAS along with the colleagues from the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA) and the University of Naples. They made use of a silicon skin with alternate rigid and soft zones (5 hard and 3 soft zones to be precise). It is important to note here that these flexible parts are made of elastomeric foam that retain their elasticity even at temperatures ranging from -55 to 80 degrees Celsius.
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Simulation of Flex Module ​