The Aircraft Morphing Program at NASA Langley Research Center explores opportunities to improve airframe designs with smart technologies. Two elements of this basic research program are multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) and advanced flow control. This paper describes examples where MDO techniques such as sensitivity analysis, automatic differentiation, and genetic algorithms contribut...

This paper presents estimation models for the model-based preliminary design of electro-mechanical actuators. Models are developed to generate all the parameters required by a multi-objective design, from a limited number of input parameters. This is achieved by using scaling laws in order to take advantage of their capability to reflect the physical constraints driving the actuator's component...

The United States general aviation fleet is aging with aircraft manufactured 35–39 years ago representing the most prevalent group. Since older aircraft are more prone to airframe corrosion, fatigue, and brittle electrical wiring, the present study was undertaken to determine whether malfunction-related accidents for general aviation aircraft manufactured between 1970 and 1984 were elevated rel...

The aim of this article is to provide a broad overview of current and future noise reduction technologies used in aircraft industries. It starts by recalling the regulation framework and the European incentives that have triggered efforts in this domain, as well as the major dedicated EU research programs. Then, technologies are introduced in four parts: engine nacelle, fan, jet and exhaust tec...

The disturbances to an airframe’s sensors caused by the flexibility of the airframe is called structural coupling. Notch filters are currently used to attenuate the effect that the structural modes have on the aircraft’s inertial flight control sensors. However, this approach is becoming more problematic with modern combat aircraft. A complex model which is representative of an agile combat air...

Structural coupling is the disturbance to the aircraft’s inertial sensors caused by the flexibility in the airframe, and is particularly problematic for modern combat aircraft. The current solution uses a series of notch filters to remove the structural frequencies, but these introduce significant phase delays into the control loop. This paper presents some experimental and theoretical results ...