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www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc
Center for Advanced Computational Technology, University of Virginia, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681, USA
b
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, USA
c
Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, OH 45433, USA
d
Boeing Phantom Works, St. Louis, MO 63166, USA
Received 5 August 1998; accepted 10 January 1999
Abstract
An overview of structures technology for future aerospace systems is given. Discussion focuses on developments
in component technologies that will improve the vehicle performance, advance the technology exploitation process,
and reduce system life-cycle costs. The component technologies described are smart materials and structures,
multifunctional materials and structures, aordable composite structures, extreme environment structures, exible
load bearing structures, and computational methods and simulation-based design. The trends in each of the
component technologies are discussed and the applicability of these technologies to future aerospace vehicles is
described. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Keywords: Structures technology; Aerospace systems; Smart materials and structures; Multifunctional structures; Composite structures; Extreme environments; Load-bearing systems; Computational methods
1. Introduction
Structures technology encompasses a wide range of
component technologies from materials development
to analysis, design, testing, production and maintenance. Materials and structures have largely been responsible for major performance improvements in
many aerospace systems [1]. The maturation of computational structures technology and the development of
advanced composite materials witnessed during the
past 30 years have improved structural performance,
reduced operational risk, and shortened development
time. The design of future aerospace systems must
meet additional demanding challenges [2]. For aircraft,
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Fig. 1. Projected percentage reduction in subsonic transport operating cost in 2020 resulting from deploying new technologies.
Long-haul/high capacity: (1) conventional, (2) blended-wing body, (3) long-haul capacity conventional, (4) medium range intracontinental, (5) regional jet (courtesy of NASA Langley Research Center).
Fig. 2. Projected vehicle total gross weight reduction percent. Supersonic: (1) long-haul, (2) premium service, (3) business jet; longhaul, high capacity subsonic, (4) conventional, (5) blended-wing body; global air cargo, (6) long haul, (7) short haul; STOL, (8)
medium range intercontinental, (9) short-haul high capacity; short-haul/vertical lift, (10) tiltrotor (courtesy of NASA Langley
Research Center).
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Fig. 3. Future tailless military aircraft will use smart materials (checkerboard area), twisting wing, expandable fuel cell, and compliant trailing edge (courtesy of Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, OH).
necessarily be selective and brief. The focus of the present article is on developments in component technologies that will improve the vehicle performance,
advance the technology exploitation process, and
reduce system life-cycle costs. The component technologies are grouped into six categories, namely:
.
.
.
.
.
.
The development of each of the component technologies is a multidisciplinary activity, which involves
tasks in other disciplines. In this article, the trends in
each of the component technologies are discussed and
the applicability of these technologies to future vehicles
is described. Materials technologies for future aerospace systems are discussed in Refs. [5,6].
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over the lifting surface); vibration suppression (including utter and buet control); alleviation of noise and
vibration; and monitoring of vehicle health. For space
systems, smart structures provide a robust design
approach for meeting precision requirements. They can
signicantly reduce cost and schedule by decreasing
the requirements on analysis, development testing,
hardware process testing, and quality control.
The activities pertaining to three smart structures
concepts are described subsequently: shape adaptive
structures and aerodynamic load control; structural
health monitoring; and vibration and noise suppression. The Department of Defense and NASA are
studying the concept of shape adaptive structures and
aerodynamic load control. Design concepts include airfoil warping, camber shaping/control surface deformation, and variable stiness structures. The goal of
this research is to enhance ight vehicle performance
(while reducing weight and the need for discrete, external control surfaces). Some adaptive structures concepts twist the airfoil, vary its camber, and deform
leading and trailing edge control surfaces through
SMA actuation to enhance maneuvering and lift. Such
techniques can increase aircraft survivability and
reduce drag (Fig. 3).
Active aerodynamic load control can be achieved via
self-straining actuators (SMAs or piezoelectric devices)
embedded within the structure. The actuators expand
or contract on command. This changes the shape of
the active airfoil element, which in turn changes the
aerodynamic load on the lifting surface. The most
likely candidates for smart material load control are
very exible surfaces such as the High Altitude Long
Endurance (HALE) aircraft, or smaller surfaces such
as missile ns. Future piezoelectric materials will have
to withstand harsh environments and be expansive
enough to deform large aerodynamic surfaces.
Anisotropic actuators will be needed to control bending and torsion response independently.
One near-term use for smart structures is monitoring
of vehicle health [79]. An onboard-distributed ber
optic network, connecting sensors to processors, can
be used for this purpose [10]. One type of sensor being
developed will measure the `sounds' of crack growthtransducers emit acoustic signals throughout the structure and measure changes in the structural response,
indicating crack initiation or growth at remote sites.
Other sensors detect and measure separation (delamination) of composite material layers. Each processor
receives signals and analyzes an array of sensors to
determine if and where damage has occurred.
Two areas of special interest are reducing the oscillations of primary structure due to unsteady external
forces, and reducing the transmission of acoustic
energy through the structure. Active control systems
that use piezoelectric actuators are being developed.
Actuators will be attached to the skin and substructures of the vehicle. Alleviation of these dynamic loads
will increase structure life and reduce maintenance
time and costs [11].
Some elements of smart materials and structures
technology are already being demonstrated; however,
several technical challenges must be overcome before
the technology can be incorporated into future operational vehicles. The challenges include dening the
fatigue life characteristics of smart actuators attached
to realistic aircraft structures in an operational environment, and developing the maintenance and repair
procedures for embedded actuators. Other technical
issues that must be addressed to realize the full potential of the technology involve structure fabrication
methods, reliable actuator material, lightweight structural materials capable of physical and virtual shape
changes, and recongurable adaptive control system.
The basic theory for controlling smart structures in
static and dynamic environments is presented in Ref.
[12]. Reviews of recent developments in smart materials and structures and their applications are given
in Refs. [1324]. The various couplings between mechanical, thermal, electric, and magnetic elds for smart
materials are depicted in Fig. 4. Computational
methods for smart materials and structures are
described in Ref. [25].
3. Multifunctional materials and structures
Multifunctional structures (MFS), in addition to
supporting loads, use sensors to detect and evaluate
loads or failure, and to interact with the surrounding
electromagnetic environment. MFS represents a new
manufacturing and integration technology by which
communications and electronics equipment are integrated into conformal load-bearing structures.
Advances in large-scale integrated electronics packaging, lightweight composite structures and high-con-
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structures will be a common concept in future air vehicles. It will yield lower cost, lighter weight airframes,
increased antenna performance, and lower manufacturing and maintenance costs. These multifunctional
structures may also enable greater data transfer rates
and increased aircraft surface area for additional sensors and transmitters.
MFS technology oers signicant savings in the
mass and volume of spacecraft by eliminating electrical
chassis and cabling, and placing most sensors and batteries on the bus structure, which also provides structural and thermal control (Fig. 6). The technology
oers several benets to future spacecraft: its inherent
modularity supports low-cost mass production and
assembly, signicantly reducing life-cycle costs; it eliminates cables and connectors, minimizing `touch-labor'
needed during nal spacecraft integration, whose
robustness and reliability it increases; it enables
Fig. 6. Multifunctional structural panel with integral electronic, structural and thermal control.
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attained by considering the airframe to be a multifunctional structure early in the development of the conceptual design and simultaneously optimizing the
design across all disciplines. Previously unimagined design eciencies and synergies will be achieved.
Ultimately though, the transition of multifunctional
aircraft structural concepts to next generation aircraft
will require resources focused on development of technologies to ensure their aordability, durability, and
supportability in the operational environment. These
quantities will be essential to continued development
of future systems including uninhabited aircraft and
hypersonic vehicles.
4. Aordable composite structures
For many future aircraft, the use of composite primary structures, along with other structures technology
improvements, could have more impact on aordability than any other technology area. The cost of manufacturing composite structures has proven to be the
largest obstacle to their widespread use. This is because
of design and manufacturing approaches that use composite materials in the conventional `metals fashion' of
assembling large numbers of mechanically fastened
parts.
Aordable composite structures can be achieved by
proper material selection, changing load paths, using
robust low-cost manufacturing and joining/assembly
techniques, and developing approaches for subsystem
integration [3032]. A coordinated design approach
involving larger, integrated components to maximize
producibility, quality, and design eciency is needed
to fully exploit the weight and cost benets of composites. This will require composites to be considered as
early as possible in the design process so that load
paths are dened that oer manufacturability and do
not penalize the composite structure's eciency.
The low-cost composite manufacturing processes
include tow placement, resin transfer molding, resin
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Fig. 9. Inatable structures: (a) Inatable solar sail; (b) Solar Orbital Transfer Vehicle (SOTV) showing two 7 10 m inatable
solar concentrators (courtesy of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Edwards AFB, CA); (c) a 5 m diameter inatable collector
(courtesy of NASA Langley Research Center and Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, OH); (d) inatable laboratory being attached to Mars lander to increase the internal pressurized volume for the crew.
the weight of structures designed for nonextreme environments. Design life requirements of future systems
also far exceed those of current vehicles. The greatest
potential for achieving the required weights and life
lies in the development of novel structural concepts
that use high-temperature polymer and ceramic matrix
composite (CMC) materials. Key materials may
include the Blackglas2 family of CMCs including bismaleimides, polyamides, and porous structures.
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8. Future directions
Not every area in the disciplinary ensemble of structures technology is expected to yield breakthroughs in
the near future. However, steady progress in all the
component technologies will improve the structural
eciency of aerospace systems. Demands for eciency
and multifunctionality will drive structures technology
to develop new capabilities in which material selection
and structural forms are highly complex and integrated.
Several material technologies oer extraordinary farterm opportunities such as functionally graded, function-integrated, nanophase and biomimetic materials.
For functionally graded materials (FGMs), novel processing techniques are used to produce engineered, gradual transitions in microstructure, composition, and
properties to satisfy spatially varying functional performance requirements within a single component. Use
of FGMs can alleviate the high gradients of internal
stresses and strains resulting from the dierent local
deformation elds included when dissimilar materials
are joined to form a component. This technology
could allow researchers to develop complicated structures without using conventional methods of joining.
Function-integrated materials are extensions of smart
materials. The sensing functions that use photons,
mechanical forces and magnetic or electric elds are
built into the molecular structure. Among their potential applications are sprayable and adhesive batteries
or solar cells for aircraft wings, to convert solar energy
to electrical power and store it, and sprayable structural composites that have a switchable antenna function to receive and process information or to provide
low observability on demand.
Nanophase materials are produced by consolidating
ultrane particles of the same atoms as their common
forms. Mechanical, optical, chemical, magnetic and
electrical properties of nanophase materials can be tailored to meet specic needs through controlling the
size of their constituent grains.
Biomimetic technology aims at producing new materials by mimicking the synthesis, processing and
properties of materials found in biological systems.
Among the unique and useful characteristics of such
systems are multifunctionality, hierarchical organization, self-repair, adaptability and durability.
Moreover, biological structural systems do not distinguish between materials and structures. The design
and development of natural organisms is an integrated
process in which component functions are multiple and
result in a cost-eective, durable structure.
Future structural research issues involve integrating
existing and new materials into functional systems with
high-quality and low-cost features. Future eorts will
address advanced load path management, innovative
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