Chapter 7 – Morphing Skin: Foams

Abstract A morphing skin was developed for adaptive wings with multifinger ribs architecture enabling conformal and differential airfoil camber morphing. The skin consists of aluminum profiles for spanwise stability and low temperature elastomer foam and rubber layer for chordwise elasticity especially at − 55°C under cruise flight conditions. Fatigue and aging properties of the elastomer joints were measured by mechanical testing between − 55°C and 80°C and the structure was optimized accordingly by FEM simulations. A new heating process has been designed to perform curing, foaming, and adhesive bonding of different reactive elastomer formulations and aluminum profiles at the same time. There were 4 m long skin panels that were manufactured and assembled into a true-scale wind tunnel demonstrator.