Federal award (DELIVERY ORDER, fiscal year 2023)
Recipient: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF AEROSPACE ASSOCIATES
Awarding agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration / National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Funding agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration / National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Period of performance: 2018-05-18 to 2019-07-23
Current total value of award: $84933
Description: TOW-STEERED PANELS FOR TAILORED WINGS.  THE PASSIVE AEROELASTIC TAILORED (PAT) WING TASK UNDER THE ADVANCED AIR TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGIES (AATT) PROJECT IS DEVELOPING DESIGNS TO SUPPORTED LIGHTWEIGHT HIGH-ASPECT RATIO COMPOSITE WINGS FOR FUTURE COMMERCIAL TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT. ONE APPROACH IS TO USE AUTOMATED FIBER PLACEMENT (AFP) MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY WITH FIBER ORIENTATIONS TAILORED IN DIRECTIONS WITHIN THE PLANE TO SUPPORT OPTIMUM SHAPES RELATIVE TO STATIC AND AERODYNAMIC LOADS. THE GOAL OF THIS RESEARCH PROJECT IS TO DEVELOP MINIMUM-WEIGHT STRUCTURAL DESIGNS OF TOW-STEERED FLAT COMPOSITE PANELS REPRESENTATIVE OF WING STRUCTURE WHICH CAN BE FABRICATED ON THE INTEGRATED STRUCTURAL ASSEMBLY OF ADVANCED COMPOSITES (ISAAC) ROBOT AT NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER (LARC) AND TESTED IN THE LARC FACILITIES.  THE CURRENT NEED IS TO DEVELOP DESIGNS AND CONDUCT DETAILED ANALYSES OF TWO OR MORE FLAT TOW-STEERED CARBON-FIBER PANELS BASED ON A COMPUTER MODEL OF THE RELEVANT WING WHICH WILL BE PROVIDED BY NASA. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL USE SUITABLE ANALYSIS TO DEMONSTRATE THE VALUE OF TOW STEERING IN REDUCING WEIGHT COMPARED TO STRAIGHT-FIBER PANELS.