Cover Story ( Jihong ZHU, Jiannan YANG, Weihong ZHANG, Xiaojun GU, Han ZHOU. Design and applications of morphing aircraft and their structures. Front. Mech. Eng., 2023, 18(3): 34)
Morphing aircraft hold immense potential in accomplishing diverse missions with a single aircraft. Therefore, they have become a crucial design direction for future aircraft. Researchers took inspiration from flying animals like birds in designing these aircraft, which can dynamically regulate their aerodynamic layouts to adapt to changing service conditions. Thus, optimal performance is ensured while their intended purposes are fulfilled. Morphing aircraft have recently embraced structures with nonconventional configurations, such as topology structures, lattice structures, and bionic structures. Rapid advancements in additive manufacturing and related technologies have enabled swift progress in validating these groundbreaking morphing aircraft concepts. Moreover, the utilization of shape memory alloys, piezoelectric materials, and other smart materials opens up new avenues for the development of morphing aircraft. When combined with new flexible skins and accurate control systems, these innovations hold the promise of creating morphing aircraft that possess self-sensing, self-adapting, and even self-repairing capabilities, uplifting the realm of aircraft design to new heights in the foreseeable future.
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