Building twinning Actions in smart Aviation with eNvironmental Gains

Project Information

BAANG

Grant agreement ID: 101079091

DOI

10.3030/101079091

Project closed

EC signature date 13 July 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• Widening participation and spreading excellence

Total cost

€ 1 275 456,25

EU contribution

€ 1 275 456,00

Coordinated by

VYSOKE UCENI TECHNICKE V BRNE
Czechia

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BAANG (Building twinning Actions in smart Aviation with eNvironmental Gains)

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The main objective of the BAANG project is to stimulate the scientific excellence and innovation capacity of the involved partners in the field of smart aviation with a positive impact on the environment.
Current aircrafts have a limited ability to adapt the aerodynamic shape of wings to critical flight conditions. This limits the possibilities of minimising the aircrafts’ drag according to the actual wing load or suppressing adverse aeroelastic effects such as gust loading. In this context, the EU-funded BAANG project will bring scientific and technological innovation leading to the design of an aircraft structure. The new wing design will use 3D-printed metamaterials and advanced simulation techniques leading to efficient wing adaptation. The integration of intelligent sensing materials will enable self-inspection operation, such as detecting structural defects.
The EU-funded BAANG will link BUT with three top scientific teams through a twinning action to strengthen the excellence that will further advance national and European challenges.
The exploratory research project leading to the design of an aircraft structure changing its morphology creates the convenient environment for networking and close collaboration within multiple disciplines - aerospace, mechatronics, mechanics of materials and additive manufacturing technologies. Particularly, we need to improve methods for designing an optimal wing shape in crucial flight conditions. The structure of the particular wing component ensuring its capability of controlled shape adaptation will be based on the application of metamaterials, such as auxetic structures. Besides that, the novel material offers the possibility of self-inspection analysis, which is very important for aerospace applications and reliability of designed components. The manufacturing of wing components using additive technologies will enable the design of complex low-weight inner structures and already reduces the materials consumed during manufacturing.
We aim to achive:
O1: Creating a network of collaborating academics and industry representatives and generating new approaches by linking the areas of smart materials, novel structures, new design, simulation techniques, and optimal wing shape adaptation.
O2: Intensive collaboration of 9 early-stage researchers from widening institution with top scientific teams in the field of smart aviation with a focus on increasing the submission of other international projects.
O3: Increasing the number of articles and related results in impacted journals during the project, will cause a doubling of the H-index of the BUT early stage researchers involved.
O4: Upgrading the research management and administration unit within the coordinating institution and creating two new posts - IPR manager and Data manager.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The BAANG project advanced the multidisciplinary design, optimisation, and validation of adaptive and metamaterial-based structures for morphing wing applications. The work combined modelling, optimisation, additive manufacturing, and experimental validation across multiple research areas.
A uniaxial hysteretic superelastic constitutive model was developed for additively manufactured lattice materials, enabling efficient beam-based simulations that accurately reproduce experimental responses. Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) were applied for multiscale large-deformation analysis of metamaterials, achieving comparable accuracy to finite element methods with higher computational efficiency.
A unified model of sandwich panels with metamaterial cores and composite skins was introduced for aeroelastic optimisation, enabling direct inclusion of core parameters in the optimisation framework.
Gradient metamaterial skins and compliant mechanisms were designed for morphing leading and trailing edges. This approach was applied to the leading-edge section of the physical demonstrator, allowing the creation of a flexible metamaterial skin with gradient stiffness distribution capable of achieving smooth shape changes. Optimisation using differential evolution algorithms achieved target aerodynamic shapes under realistic loads.
A multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) framework was implemented for a morphing wing section with a metamaterial-based trailing edge, integrating aerodynamic, structural, and control analyses. The results guided the design and manufacture of a functional demonstrator, produced using composite layups and 3D printing, which successfully exhibited smooth trailing-edge deformation.
Further research focused on material development and smart functionality:
Material development: optimisation of Nitinol (NiTi) production by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) established the relationship between process parameters, porosity, microstructure, and thermo-mechanical behaviour. The study provided valuable data on superelastic response, fatigue behaviour, and cyclic stability of additively manufactured NiTi for potential use in morphing structures.
Smart functionality: integration of piezoelectric components within metamaterial lattices enabled self-sensing capability and tunable stiffness through electrical load control, demonstrating the feasibility of multifunctional adaptive structures.
Together, these achievements represent a complete workflow—from constitutive modelling to physical validation—meeting the project’s technical objectives and enabling experimental verification of a morphing wing concept.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The BAANG project delivered several key advances beyond the current state of the art in aerospace morphing and metamaterial structures:
Metamaterial-enabled morphing control surfaces: replacement of traditional hinged mechanisms by continuous deformable lattices allowing smooth camber variation.
Integrated multidisciplinary optimisation: coupling aerodynamic, structural, and control design within one framework for efficient UAV performance enhancement.
Novel modelling approaches: use of PINNs and beam-based constitutive models for scalable, accurate simulation of complex metamaterial behaviour.
Self-sensing metamaterial platforms: integration of piezoelectric components enabling structural health monitoring and vibration mitigation.
Advanced additive manufacturing of superelastic alloys: optimisation of NiTi process parameters for stable, repeatable superelastic performance.
Validated morphing wing demonstrator: successful experimental verification of the design approach at UAV scale, confirming aerodynamic functionality and structural feasibility.
These results establish a foundation for next-generation adaptive aircraft structures. Future efforts should focus on extended aeroelastic testing, integration of active actuation systems, and long-term reliability studies to support industrial uptake and technology maturation. The results in the BAANG project are realized at a small scale and low TRL level. To ensure that these results will be taken up further and be successful, they will need to be demonstrated at a higher TRL level. This would require the technology to move from academia into industry, so it can be tested on a larger and more relevant setting.

The prototype showcases how metamaterials can enable smooth and efficient wing shape changes.