(Newswire.net — November 10, 2014) — Hampton, Virginia – In a joint Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) project with the US Air Force, NASA has successfully conducted the first test of a “revolutionary shape changing aircraft flap”.
A part of the ailerons which control the heading of an aircraft, flaps are movable parts of the wings that extend on takeoffs and landings to provide more stability (lift) on slower speeds by changing the wing’s airflow.
When extended, flaps on current airplanes leave a gap between flap and the wing. This gap influences the airflow and increases drag. More drag means that the engines must produce more power, resulting in higher fuel consumption.
The new flaps are gapless which means not only lower fuel consumption and in-flight stability, but they should eliminate a major source of airframe noise generation. This development will make future aircraft significantly quieter and more effecient.
For the first in-flight test scientists chose a small business jet, the Gulfstream III. The engineers swapped the G-III’s conventional 19-foot-long aluminum flaps with new shape-shifting product.
“FlexSys developed a variable geometry airfoil system called FlexFoil that can be retrofitted to existing airplane wings or integrated into brand new airframes,” NASA said in a press release.
“This flight test is one of the NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project’s eight large-scale integrated technology demonstrations to show design improvements in drag, weight, noise, emission and fuel reductions,” said Fay Collier, ERA project manager at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
NASA experts say the new technology will save hundreds of millions of dollars annually in fuel costs. Tests are made at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, the agency said in a statement.
Flight-testing would determine whether flexible trailing-edge wing flaps are a viable approach to improve aerodynamic efficiency and reduce noise generated during takeoffs and landings. This is the first in-flight test of many to come, said NASA officials.
AFRL Program Manager Pete Flick said the engineers 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.”