T-WING project is funded by the European
Commission through the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking. The consortium is
composed of seven partners: the Italian Aerospace Research Center
(Coordinator), the companies Magnaghi Aeronautica and Salver, the SMEs OMI and
SSM, the German consulting company IBK Innovation and the University of Naples
Federico II.
T-WING consortium is working on the composite
wing of the Next Generation Civil TiltRotor - Technology Demonstrator, planned
to be flying in 2023 (https://www.cleansky.eu/fast-rotorcraft-iadp). The task undertaken by the
consortium is aimed at designing, manufacturing, qualifying and flight-testing
the wing and moveable surfaces of the NGCTR-TD. The logics behind the
development of wing and moveable surfaces foresees a design phase based on the
requirements driven by airworthiness and defined in cooperation with the Work
Area Leader (WAL) Leonardo Helicopters (LHD). One of the main requirements is
the aeroelastic stability of the vehicle, which translates in a challenging
design of the wing, which has to be sufficiently stiff to comply with flutter
and whirl flutter clearance, but not in excess with respect to the weight
budget. Once the design phase is completed, the wing will be manufactured,
qualified and assembled on the NGCTR-TD fuselage. The last step of the
development is the instrumentation of the wing, by the use of accelerometers
and strain gauges, and the flight test campaign, which will lead, among others,
to the validation of the flight loads. T-WING will also deliver the qualified
Nacelle Primary Structure, which hosts engine and transmission. Among the
different activities in charge of the consortium: crashworthiness, noise
prediction methods, wind tunnel tests, life cycle assessment of the innovative
structural concept and scalability studies, to push the development at larger
scales.