{"id":3154,"date":"2019-04-12T14:57:36","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T13:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/?p=3154"},"modified":"2025-12-04T07:41:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T07:41:58","slug":"new-shapeshifting-airplane-wing-invented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/new-shapeshifting-airplane-wing-invented\/","title":{"rendered":"New shapeshifting airplane wing invented"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>\n<div class=\"wp-block-rank-math-toc-block\" id=\"rank-math-toc\"><h2>Table of Contents<\/h2><nav><div><div><a href=\"#\ufffc-airplane-wing-assembles-like-a-jigsaw-puzzle-and-can-morph-into-any-shape\">\ufffcAirplane Wing Assembles Like a Jigsaw Puzzle and Can Morph Into Any Shape.<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/nav><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\" id=\"\ufffc-airplane-wing-assembles-like-a-jigsaw-puzzle-and-can-morph-into-any-shape\"><figure><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/nasax-1024x681.jpeg\" alt=\"airplane wing\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\"><\/figure>Airplane Wing Assembles Like a Jigsaw Puzzle and Can Morph Into Any Shape.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/64186-plane-blimp-plimp-aircraft.html\" data-track-type=\"click\" data-index=\"1\" data-component=\"Inline links\" data-count=\"9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new type of airplane<\/a> wing assembled like a jigsaw puzzle could make for lighter, more efficient aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NASA and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers tested the wing design in a NASA wind tunnel, where the technology performed better than expected, Benjamin Jenett, one of the wing&#8217;s developers and a graduate student at MIT, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2019\/engineers-demonstrate-lighter-flexible-airplane-wing-0401\" data-track-type=\"click\" data-index=\"2\" data-component=\"Inline links\" data-count=\"9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said in a statement<\/a>. The new wing is light and flexible, able to adjust its shape midflight depending on the needs of the pilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;You can make any geometry you want,&#8221; Jenett said. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/39829-fastest-military-airplanes.html\" data-track-type=\"click\" data-index=\"3\" data-component=\"Inline links\" data-count=\"9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Supersonic! The 11 Fastest Military Planes<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Conventional airplane wings are made of metal and composite materials, so they&#8217;re fairly heavy. They also involve moving parts, like the flaps and ailerons you might watch tilting up and down if you get an overwing seat on a cross-country flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lattice-like wing is covered with a thin sheet of polymer and has a density of just 3.8 lbs. per cubic foot (5.6 kilograms per cubic meter).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But lightness isn&#8217;t the only advantage of the new wing design. It&#8217;s also flexible. By strategically placing stiff and flexible components in the lattice pattern, the researchers can build <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/56838-morphing-wings-bird-like-aircraft.html\" data-track-type=\"click\" data-index=\"4\" data-component=\"Inline links\" data-count=\"9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a wing that changes shape<\/a> in response to the stresses around it. Instead of having to lift a flap or move an aileron, a pilot could simply maneuver the plane, and the wing would change shape automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We&#8217;re able to gain efficiency by matching the shape to the loads at different angles of attack,&#8221; study leader Nicholas Cramer, a research computer scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, said in the statement. &#8220;We&#8217;re able to produce the exact same behavior you would do actively, but we did it passively.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research was published April 1 in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1361-665X\/ab0ea2\/meta\" data-track-type=\"click\" data-index=\"5\" data-component=\"Inline links\" data-count=\"9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Smart Materials and Structures<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Airplane Wing Assembles Like a Jigsaw Puzzle and Can Morph Into Any Shape. A new type of airplane wing assembled like a jigsaw puzzle could make for lighter, more efficient aircraft. NASA and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers tested the wing design in a NASA wind tunnel, where the technology performed better than expected, Benjamin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/nasax1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3154"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10802,"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions\/10802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}