Experimental evaluation of the morphing leading edge concept

Morphing technologies bare a great potential for further improvements of aircraft in terms of aerodynamic efficiency and noise reduction. A complete development process from conceptual design to manufacturing of a morphing leading edge concept was developed within the scope of the LeaTop project, CleanSky Green Regional Aircraft Integrated Technology Demonstrator. The morphing leading edge concept had to demonstrate morphing capabilities of at least 5deg leading edge rotation by inducing predominantly bending deformations in the airfoil skin. In addition to morphing, a prescribed target shape had to be matched as closely as possible. Furthermore, the morphing mechanism had to be able to transfer aerodynamic loads from the skin to the main spar. An operational morphing leading edge demonstrator was built and a set of experiments was designed in order to allow for a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the morphing concept and developed design methodologies with respect to the posed design requirements. Therefore, a detailed description of the experimental setup is described in this paper, followed by a detailed discussion of the obtained results and findings