Characterization of multifunctional skin-material for morphing leading-edge applications

Former research on morphing droop-nose applications revealed great economical and social ecological advantages in terms of providing gapless surfaces for long areas of laminar flow. Furthermore a droop-nose for laminar flow applications provides a low noise exposing high-lift system at the leading-edge. Various kinematic concepts for the active deployment of such devices are already published but the major challenge is still an open issue: a skin material which meets the compromise of needed stiffness and flexibility. Moreover additional functions have to be added to keep up with standard systems. As a result of several national and European projects the DLR developed a gapless 3D smart droop-nose concept, which was successfully analyzed in a low speed wind tunnel test under relevant loads to prove the functionality and efficiency. The main structure of this concept is made of commercial available glass fiber reinforced plastics (GRFP). This paper presents elementary tests to characterize material lay-ups and their integrity by applying different loads under extreme thermal conditions using aged specimens. On the one hand the presented work is focused on the integrity of material-interfaces and on the other hand the efficiency and feasibility of embedded functions. It can be concluded that different preparations, different adhesives and used materials have their significant influence to the interface stability and mechanical property of the whole lay-up. Especially the laminate design can be optimized due to the e. g. mechanical exploitation of the added systems beyond their main function in order to reduce structural mass.