NASA prepares to test airplane with radical new shape changing wing flaps

The Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) project at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center has just replaced an airplane’s aluminum flaps with a continuously bendable surface assembly that forms flexible trailing-edge wing flaps in order to improve aerodynamics and reduce the noise pollution created during takeoff and landing. The project, which began in the middle of February, is a joint effort between NASA, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and FlexSys, the company that developed the FlexFoil flaps; fitting of the flaps was completed on November 10, 2014. 

ACTE will be flown at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, in the near future. The outcome of the test flight will determine the FlexFoil’s commercial feasibility. Lightweight materials are always welcomed by the aviation industry as they can potentially reduce wing structural weight and allow engineers to promoted improved fuel economy. 

The flap settings will be locked at specific setting during the initial test, with more settings added in subsequent flights in an effort to determine how the flaps will perform in a real flight environment.

“We have progressed from an innovative idea and matured the concept through multiple designs and wind tunnel tests, to a final demonstration that should prove to the aerospace industry that this technology is ready to dramatically improve aircraft efficiency,” said AFRL Program Manager Pete Flick, from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. 

Source Phys.org