The Airframe ITD aims at re-thinking and developing the technologies as building blocks and the “solution space” on the level of the entire or holistic aircraft: pushing aerodynamics across new frontiers, combining and integrating new materials and structural techniques – and integrating innovative new controls and propulsion architectures with the airframe; and optimizing this against the challenges of weight, cost, life-cycle impact and durability.

The aim of the Clean Sky 2 topic JTI-CS2-2018-CFP09-FRC-01-26 “Design, manufacture and deliver a high performance, low cost, low weight Nacelle Structure for Next Generation TiltRotor (NGCTR) - Technology Demonstrator (TD)” is to develop innovative: lightweight materials, architecture, technologies, fire resistant materials, control of structural borne vibration to be applied on the Nacelle of the NGCTR under supervision of Leonardo Helicopters Division. TRAIL Consortium shall meet the target by introducing advanced composite materials and designing highly integrated monocoque structure of the Nacelle with use of OoA (Out of Autoclave) and VARTM (Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Method) manufacturing techniques. In the frame of the project lightweight hybrid firewalls (composite with elastomeric coating) shall be investigated to produce lighter structure. The project will also deal with novel means to damp structure borne vibration and noise through application of viscoelastic materials into the NGCTR TD Engine Nacelle design. The realization of the project shall lead to significant weight of the structure and number of parts reduction. It shall also show that decreasing manufacturing costs and time is possible and lead to introduction of technologies which shall reduce environmental impact of air transport and aviation industry.

The Airframe ITD aims at re-thinking and developing the technologies as building blocks and the “solution space” on the level of the entire or holistic aircraft: pushing aerodynamics across new frontiers, combining and integrating new materials and structural techniques – and integrating innovative new controls and propulsion architectures with the airframe; and optimizing this against the challenges of weight, cost, life-cycle impact and durability.

The aerodynamic configuration of the Next Generation Civil Tilt Rotor needs to be characterized at high speed by a dedicated wind tunnel test campaign. HIGHTRIP will design a new model based on NICETRIP design philosophy, re-using the new (instrumented) NEXTTRIP empennages. If complete re-use is not feasible, basic design, balances and remote controls will be re-used to limit the costs. Consequently, the exact model scale will result from sizing NEXTTRIP empennage to the NGCTR-TD geometry. To provide full scale Reynolds number data and perform aerodynamic characteristics analysis at high speeds and full scale conditions, extrapolation to full scale Reynolds numbers will be done by CFD. The HIGHTRIP project proposes to use the ONERA S1MA large wind tunnel facility, to enable the application of remotely controlled surfaces and nacelles with small wind tunnel interference covering the complete Mach envelop. Within the FP6 project NICETRIP a 1/5th scale full-span, powered wind tunnel model has been designed and tested. This model will be reused and equipped with two new T- and V- shaped empennage configurations based on the NGCTR-TD and tested at low speed conditions within the project NEXTTRIP, managed by NLR. The design and manufacturing of the new NEXTTRIP empennages and especially their remote controls and instrumentation will envisage usage for higher speeds in the HIGHTRIP project. HIGHTRIP partners, NLR, ILOT, PW and ST will work together during 45 months for a total grant request of 3,495,243€, to design and manufacture new fuselage and new wing in the HIGHTRIP model, based on the NEXTTRIP and NICETRIP parts. NLR will subcontract the non-powered high speed wind tunnel test to ONERA-S1MA, resulting in a data package (on model scale) corrected for wind tunnel effects. NLR will analyse the wind tunnel data and perform the required extrapolation to the full scale Reynolds numbers to support the topic manager for full scale developmenst of the NGCTR TD.