Projects

Start date: 1 January 2023  -  End date: 31 December 2025

Description: The aviation sector is on a path to addressing its impacts on the environment and climate. Improving the sector’s environmental performance is high on the agenda, and the EU is investing in key technologies and processes to make zero-emission aircraft a reality. Regional aviation is expected to bring new, innovative approaches to aircraft and air transport operations. Air vehicles flying distances of less than 500 km (regional connections) will benefit from hybrid-electric propulsion technologies. In this context, the EU-funded HERWINGT project will develop key technologies to address a new wing design for a hybrid electric regional aircraft. It will conduct the manufacturing, assembly, structural concepts and processes, concept studies, configuration and architecture trade-offs for a full wing component (cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101102010).

Contribution: Responsible of two full-scale demonstrators: 1. Morphing droop nose designed for fatigue life assessment; 2. Large bandwidth morphing aileron installed on the outer part of the new wing to be tested in the large wind tunnel of the Politecnico di Milano.

Funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking - HER-04

Start date: 1 March 2019  -  End date: 28 February 2023

Description: A fully loaded Jumbo jet can weigh 400 tonnes, so keeping the plane flying safely is a tremendous feat, even more so during sudden gusts or turbulence. Wind tunnels and flight simulation are critical to aircraft design, development and testing. The EU-funded GUDGET project is developing a new gust generator to investigate the aeroelastic behaviour of aircraft during high amplitude gusts, and an advanced, heavily instrumented and equipped WT model with a motorised aileron enabling the testing of new gust load alleviation techniques. The system and the WT model will be installed at a world-class European transonic wind tunnel facility to aid in the creation of a database that will improve numerical models and their predictive accuracy (cordis.europa.eu/project/id/831802).

Contribution: Scientific Responsible of the activities related to the aeroelastic analyses in support of the design of the transonic wind tunnel model (Mach = 0.82) equipped with the active control system aimed at mitigating gust load effects.

Funded by the EU Clean Sky 2 programme

Start date: 6 January 2014  -  End date: 31 December 2019

Description: An aircraft that can transport between approximately 100-130 passengers, and is intended for short and medium haul flights can be considered to be a Regional Aircraft. The challenge is to improve the passenger experience so that regional aircraft offer a comparable level of inflight comfort, free from noise and vibration, with a comfort level comparable or better than today’s modern jets and with a reliability of service well beyond today’s service into small and regional airports (cordis.europa.eu/project/id/807089).

Contribution: Topic Leader for the aero-structural optimization and design, through a Critical Design Review (CDR), of a morphing droop nose device based on compliant structures. This work culminated in the delivery of a full-scale prototype, used for laboratory testing and numerical/experimental correlation (TRL = 6).

Funded by the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking, under the European’s Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation Programme

Start date: 1 February 2014  -  End date: 30 November 2016

Description: The aim of Gust Load Alleviation techcniques assessment on wind tUnnel MOdel of advanced Regional aircraft (GLAMOUR) proposal is a technological optimisation and experimental validation through an aero-servo-elastic innovative WT model of gust load alleviation control systems for advanced Green Regional Aircraft. The expected benefits of such technologies are mainly the mitigation of gust load responses, the reduction of peak stresses so to potentially decrease sizing loads and consequently increase the weight saving. Most generally, the capability to control the load distribution spanwise could contribute to other global targets such as fatigue lifetime as well aeroelastic and aerodynamic performances (cordis.europa.eu/project/id/620084).

Contribution: Responsible for the design, manufacturing, and testing in the Large Wind Tunnel of Politecnico di Milano of an aeroservoelastic demonstrator of a complete aircraft, scaled at 1/6 using an iso-frequency strategy. The model served as a platform for technological optimization and experimental validation of various active control systems aimed at gust load alleviation.

Funded by Clean Sky (EU-FP7)

Start date: 1 September 2011  -  End date: 28 February 2015

Description: The aim of the NOVEMOR (NOvel Air VEhicle Configurations: From Fluttering Wings to MORphing Flight) research project is to investigate novel air vehicle configurations with new lifting concepts and morphing wing solutions to enable cost-effective air transportation. A multidisciplinary analysis and design optimization environment developed in an earlier EU Project (SIMSAC) will be used and improved to include analysis of novel configurations such as the joined-wing concept for improved lift and morphing wing solutions as an integral part of the aircraft conceptual design, rather than just as an add-on later in the design cycle. Such concepts will enable improved aircraft efficiencies, aerodynamic performance, reduced structural loads and lighter weight (cordis.europa.eu/project/id/285395).

Contribution: The activities carried out by the Politecnico di Milano focused on two main research areas: 1. Design and evaluation of the overall benefits of leading and trailing edge morphing devices, based on the compliant structure concept, and installed on a reference aircraft provided by EMBRAER; 2. Design and wind tunnel testing of a scaled model equipped with leading and trailing edge morphing devices manufactured using 3D printing technology.

Funded by the Seventh framework programme of the European Community (EU–FP7)

Start date: 1 September 2011  -  End date: 31 August 2015

Description: The project tackles the challenges of integrating smart intelligent structural concepts to reduce aircraft weight, operational costs, and enhance aerodynamic performance tailored to specific flight profiles. It focuses on material concepts enabling conformal, controlled distortion of aerodynamic surfaces, active or passive shape and damage assessment, and additional functionalities previously unattainable. While past research has demonstrated the economic feasibility and maturity of aerodynamic morphing, few projects have addressed the structural integration challenges for commercial aircraft, particularly the skin material and its bonding to substructures. This project aims to validate the structural feasibility of morphing concepts including leading edge, trailing edge, and winglet on a full-size external wing through aerodynamic and structural testing. Operational requirements for morphing surfaces demand an integrated shape-sensing system to ensure optimal aerodynamic control, robustness, and failure tolerance. Structural health monitoring developments will be adapted for this purpose, leveraging advances in rapid in-service damage assessment. Further integration of these systems at the manufacturing level will optimize application time and enable their use for process and quality control. Addressing the nanotechnology aspect, the project will demonstrate significant improvements in damage tolerance and electrical conductivity at the sub-assembly level (cordis.europa.eu/project/id/284562).

Contribution: Definition of initial requirements to meet the aerodynamic and structural specifications of the morphing devices installed on the reference wing: Morphing Leading Edge, Morphing Trailing Edge e Winglet Active Trailing Edge.

Funded by the Seventh framework programme of the European Community (EU–FP7)

Start date: 2007  -  End date: 2009

Description: The NICETRIP project was part of the European rotorcraft community's research and development roadmap, which aimed to advance the development of a civil tilt-rotor aircraft. A key objective of this roadmap was the realization of a flying demonstrator within the 2010s. NICETRIP focused on generating new knowledge and validating key technologies essential for tilt-rotor systems (cordis.europa.eu/project/id/30944 ).

Contribution: Multi-body aeroelastic modeling and limit cycle oscillation (LCO) analysis of a wind tunnel whirl-flutter model for the European ERICA tiltrotor.

Funded by the Sixth framework programme of the European Community (EU–FP6)

Start date: 2022  -  End date: 2023

Description: Scientific Responsible for the contract titled: 'Preliminary multidisciplinary aero–structural design of morphing compliant structural concepts for an adaptive wing of high performance aircraft' carried out under the framework agreement “Leonardo - Politecnico Innovation Hub”, focused on advancing state-of-the-art technologies to enable the wing to adapt to a variety of flight maneuvers and optimize overall performance through innovative structural design methodologies.

Start date: 2018  -  End date: 2022

Description: The evaluation of the safety and reliability of aircraft dependent on active flutter suppression control systems is conducted through comprehensive testing in the Large Wind Tunnel at Politecnico di Milano. These tests are carried out on the F–XDIA aeroservoelastic demonstrator, which was specifically redesigned and upgraded to meet the requirements of this experimental purpose. The study aims to assess the system's performance under various aerodynamic and operational conditions, ensuring the integrity and robustness of the active control mechanisms in preventing flutter phenomena that could compromise the aircraft's safety and operational reliability.

Funded and supported by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

Start date: 2013  -  End date: 2017

Description: The research project, funded by the MIUR and developed by Leonardo Aircraft Division (Lead), Brembo, Tema, Ase, Blackshape, Politecnico Di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, and University Of Naples, aimed to develop key technologies identified as essential for maintaining a position of international 'leadership' in the aerospace industry.

Contribution: Development and implementation of a methodology for the integrated aeromechanical design of a next-generation UAV, leveraging aerodynamic/aeroelastic optimization to harness wing flexibility for maximizing aerodynamic efficiency and minimizing weight.

Funded by MIUR (Ministero dell'Istruzione e del Merito) – CTNA (Cluster Tecnologico Nazionale Aerospaziale)