featuring
Chair of the University of Michigan Department of Aerospace Engineering
C. L. “Kelly” Johnson Collegiate Professor
Thursday, September 22 @ 3:30 p.m.
Montgomery Knight Building Room 317
About this Talk
Morphing or shape changing wings on aircraft is as old as the Wright Brothers who used wing warping actuated by cables for flight control. Because of the need for rigid wings to avoid flutter this type of flight control gave way to discrete control surfaces (flaps, rudder, aileron,
elevator). In the late 1990’s interest returned to using shape changing wing configurations to replace discrete control surfaces. Most solutions where based on using conventional actuation schemes and were not much influenced by avian motions. Here we trace some of the more recent morphing efforts and discuss a new program to integrate smart, multifunctional materials and structures into avian inspired morphing aircraft for flight control of unmanned air vehicles.
About Dr. Inman
Daniel J. Inman received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Mechanical Engineering in 1980 and is Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, as well as the C. L. “Kelly” Johnson Collegiate Professor. Since 1980, he has published eight books (on vibration, energy harvesting, control, statics, and dynamics), eight software manuals, 20 book chapters, more than 330 journal papers and 600 proceedings papers, given 62 keynote or plenary lectures, graduated 62 Ph.D. students and supervised more than
75 MS degrees. He works in the area of applying smart structures to solve aerospace engineering problems including energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, vibration suppression and morphing. He is a Fellow of ASME, AIAA, SEM, IIAV and AAM.