Morphing Wing – SERIES

Source:https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/2/3/524

In this series we will discuss about morphing wing technology in aviation and what does future have for this immersive technology!… I did research thesis on Morphing wing during my Bachelors in Aerospace engineering and i have always been fascinated by this technology..

So Let’s Begin..!

Source:http://news.mit.edu/2016/morphing-airplane-wing-design-1103

Aviation industry has been looking deeply into the ways of achieving better performance aerodynamically and Maximizing lift to drag ratio in all flight conditions. Currently and mostly fixed wings are being used widely everywhere but the results are not as the researchers and designers would consider. So to overcome this researchers went back to when Wright Flyer was using twist morphing, from here they got an idea of utilizing and improving morphing wing technology. Since the fixed wing can not be used sufficiently and efficiently in all flight conditions, the morphing wing is the best way to achieve high performance aerodynamically and also it increases lift to drag ratio in all flight condition’s by changing its shape depending on the situations. This review highlights past present and future work of researchers who have done research on morphing wings and how to improve it in future. Morphing wings are sub-categorized into 3 main sections In-plane Morphing, Out of Plane Morphing and Airfoil Morphing. Each of the section has its own individual way of morphing the wing in order to achieve better performance. The main idea of morphing wing was grasped from the birds, who uses there wings efficiently without using much energy. Morphing follows there examples and minimize usage of thousands of mechanical component gradually decreasing weight and improving performance. Many Effective applications on basis of morphing wing has been done they are discussed later in this review.
One of the Main Applications of Morphing in aviation can be seen below:

Variable Sweep Wing

Source:https://www.sporcle.com/games/alvir28/variable-sweep-wing-aircraft-picture-click

Retractable Landing Gear

Source: https://www.aeronef.net/2012/08/boeing-777-300-of-cathay-pacific.html

Flaps and Slats

Source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/31648114@N06/9390789074

Variable Incidence Nose

Source: https://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/en/concorde

This was merely an introduction to the series so if you are interested please let me know in comments and…Stay Tuned for more to come…!