Morphing Technologies: Adaptive Ailerons

European Union is involving increasing amount of resources on research projects that will dramatically change the costs of building and operating aircraft in the near future. Morphing structures are a key to turn current airplanes to more efficient and versatile means of transport, operating into a wider range of flight conditions. The concept of morphing may aim at a large number of targets, and its assessment strongly depends on the final objectives and the components where it has to be deployed. Maneuver, takeoff, landing, cruise conditions, just to cite few and very general examples, have all their own peculiarities that drive the specifications the wing shape change has to suit on. In general, an adaptive structure ensures a controlled and fully reversible transition from a baseline shape to a set of different configurations, each capable of withstanding the relative external loads. The level of complexity of morphing structures naturally increases as a consequence of the augmented functionality of the reference system. Actuation mechanisms constitute a very crucial aspect for adaptive structures design because has to comply variable wing shapes with associated loads and ensure the prescribed geometrical envelope. This chapter provides a presentation of the state of the art, technical requirements, and future perspectives of morphing ailerons. It addresses morphing aircraft component architecture and design with a specific focus on the structural actuator system integration. The approach, including underlying concepts and analytical formulations,combines methodologies and tools required to develop innovative air vehicles. Aileron is a very delicate region, where aeroelastic phenomena may be very important because of the very reduced local stiffness and the complex aerodynamics, typical of the wingtip zone. On the other side, this wing segment showed to be the one where higher cruise benefits could be achieved by local camber variations. This target was achieved while keeping the typical maneuver functions