this is the largest test article ever
built with the curved path the name of
this project is the passive air elastic
tailored wing we call it the Pat wing
because it's easier to say there are
several differences between this wing
and a traditional wing first of all it's
built out of composites the biggest
difference is in the skins
we're actually steering the composite
fibers with this particular design we're
trying to tailor that stiffness and so
instead of going straight along the wing
we're actually curving that fiber in the
plane of the wing so that we can change
the stiffness along the whole length
this was one of the most heavily
instrumented wings we've ever tested
there was about 10,000 sensors on a wing
which included fiber optic strain
sensing conventional strain sensing
displacement sensors load sensing and
also in kilometers surface prep bonding
wiring checkout so there's quite a bit
to just go into it the the wing was
fabricated by Aurora and Mississippi and
the wing was wrought here of the last
six months we integrated it into our
test fixture we used a hydraulic load
control system to apply load at seven
stations along the wing
pressure's up for trial
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the challenges when wings get longer and
thinner they'd become more flexible and
so the intention of this particular test
was to try to control that flexibility
to allow us to still build a lightweight
wing with the structural benefits and
enable the aerodynamic benefit
simultaneously because this wing was
going to see largest placements under
load we design a special loading system
that included both under wing loading
and over wing loading the length of the
wing is 39 feet and the tip is projected
to deflect on the order of eight feet
the testing lasted for a couple weeks
typical positive upload tests took
approximately an hour and that data will
be collected and we will take that and
analyze that over the next six months we
hope that this will find its way into
commercial market you know this is
thoroughly the first step to demonstrate
that it's not only feasible but then you
know give us a path towards being able
to certify the technology so that it can
be used in commercial aircraft