FACC experimented with very thin ply technology to manufacture aircraft structural components (carbon fiber and glass fiber), also gained insight in manufacturing and integration of FBG sensors and experimental testing of wing structural deformations under loads. TUM gained expertise in designing wings for flutter, including tuning masses and joint structural/aerodynamical optimization, improved their knowledge in operating UAS in the common airspace. TUD gained insight in aeroelastic tailoring methods applied to manufacturable aircraft structures, improved their know-how on aircraft overall optimisation to include FEM in preliminary design. AGI-UK gained insight on the properties of aircraft wings using different design criteria (tailored vs. non-tailored). AGI-G gained insight on the characteristics of flutter frequency and modes, caused by tuning masses on the wing, also in 3D printing flight control surface parts. INASCO gained insight on embedded implementation of fibre brag sensing on small-scale instrumentation and also on reverse FEM methodology to recover loads from FBGs. SZTAKI gained insight on model order reduction of large scale LPV systems, and on automatic code generation for HILs testing environment. DLR gained insight in controllability of flexible structures with pre-defined control layout, where large scale FEM and aerodynamic models are included in the design. The control oriented modelling toolchain, developed by DLR and TUM is also beyond SOA. RWTH and AGI-G gained insight in the scale up related abstraction level, the use of standard data sharing protocols across different locations is clearly the way of the future.
The demonstrator aircraft has flown with aeroelastically tailored wings what are designed for passive load alleviation, this is a World's first. Moreover in the wing there are more than 10 distinct design regions, while in the first aeroelastically tailored wing aircraft, the X-29 has only 1 design region, an no other aircraft to date has more than one.
Moreover the simulation, analysis and synthesis tools and methods have been matured via the collaboration of the partners and reached a much higher maturity level, from which the whole European aerospace research community can benefit. These tools and methods have been also validated by ground and flight test data, and the possible mechanisms to update and adapt the methods based on new experimental data have been also developed. The advanced sensing and shape reconstruction methods via novel sensors were also developed for the first time in Europe, after the X-56 have flown with FBG sensors in the US.
The scale-up showed a potential of 8% fuel efficiency improvement, what has a significant potential to help reducing environmental footprint and make aviation greener in the near future. The developed methods and tools also confirmed the applicability of active flutter mitigation techniques, what might be included in the certification of new commercial aircraft by EASA and FAA in the near future.
