Overview of the SAMPSON smart inlet

The SAMPSON program will demonstrate the application of Smart Materials and Structures to large-scale aircraft and marine propulsion systems and show that smart materials can be used to significantly enhance vehicle performance, thereby enabling new missions and/or expanding current missions. Two demonstrations will be executed in relevant environments and at scales representations of actual vehicle components. The demonstrations will serve to directly address questions of scalability and technology readiness, thereby improving the opportunities and reducing the risk for transitioning the technology into applications. The aircraft application to be examined is the in-flight structural variation of a fighter engine inlet. Smart technologies will be utilized to actively deform the inlet into predetermined configurations to improve the performance of the inlet at all flight conditions. The inlet configurations to be investigated consists of capture area control, compression ramp generation, leading edge blunting, and porosity control. The operation and demonstration of this Smart Inlet is described in detail.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.