Development of a fast shape memory alloy based actuator for morphing airfoils

The design of aerodynamic airfoils are optimized for certain conditions. For instance, the shape of the wings of fixed-wing aircrafts are designed and optimized for a certain flight condition (in terms of altitude, speed, aircraft weight, etc.). However, these flight conditions vary significantly during the flight. Currently, aircraft are...

Performance Evaluation of Polybenzimidazole for Potential Aerospace Applications

With the increasing use of polymer based composite materials, there is an increasing demand of polymeric resins with high glass transition temperature, high thermal stability and excellent mechanical properties at high temperature. Polybenzimidazole (PBI) is a recently emerged high performance polymer. It has the highest glass transition...

Liquid crystalline thermosetting polymers as protective coatings for aerospace

Environmental regulations are driving the development of new aerospace coating systems, mainly to eliminate chromates and reduce volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. Among the various potential options for new coating materials, liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs) are attractive due to their unique combination of mechanical properties and...