Clever Materials Just Bend

Those who witnessed the first takeoff of an Airbus A380 Superjumbo from Zurich airport at the end of January know that elegant is not the right word for the aircraft. On the other hand it is perfect to describe a crane as it leaves the ground, rising in a seemingly weightless fashion. The bird uses its flying surfaces in a completely different manner to the machine. It steers itself by continually varying the geometry of its wings. Like the crane, researchers once wanted to build aircraft wings based on compliant systems, which would continually change shape in response to the air flow resistance. Flavio Campanile, head of a research group in Empa's Mechanics for Modeling and Simulation Laboratory, is convinced that aircraft can be made which move more elegantly and, above all, more economically through the air. "Sooner or later it will be possible to make wings without ailerons, flaps and thousands of individual parts. They will have in principle only one component, which continually changes shape." Biomimetic wings - that is, those based on designs seen in nature - adapt perfectly to the airflow around them, and are light and energy efficient. In order to put his ideas into practice, Campanile developed so-called 'compliant systems' at Empa and the ETH, initially by himself and thereafter with a team of twelve colleagues. But aerodynamic surface design is not the only field in which the engineer is active. Campanile also intends to tackle concrete problems facing industry by making use of compliant systems. "Wherever machines are at work, compliant structures can be used to bring improvements," Campanile is convinced. Solutions to industrial problems