Technology for Advanced Morphing Structures

The objective of the morphing concept regarding an aircraft is to provide continuous controllable deformations thus changing the stiffness of the structure. A possible solution to design morphing structure can exploit the peculiar characteristics of chiral topologies which are a relatively new design concept for composite aerospace materials. A honeycomb based on a chiral topology shows auxetic features which leads to negative Poisson coefficients. The word chiral originates from Greek meaning that a structure and its mirror image are not super-imposable. This research investigates the design of a technological demonstrator of a morphing wing that uses the auxetic features of chiral cells. The research is concentrating on the manufacturing of the chiral composite cell network inside a rib. The design of the technological demonstrator is composed of two ribs connected to each other by means of corrugated flexible skin. The recent technological demonstrator is designed as a passive structure but the next step of this research could employ the use of sensing elements and actuators.