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Since, ice accretion can significantly degrade the performance and the stability of an airborne vehicle, it is imperative to be able to model it accurately. While ice accretion studies have been performed on airplane wings and helicopter blades in abundance, there are few that attempt to model the process on more complex geometries such as fuselages. This paper proposes a methodology that extends an existing in-house Extended Messinger solver to complex geometries by introducing the capability to work with unstructured grids and carry out spatial surface streamwise marching. For the work presented here commercial solvers such as STAR-CCM+ and ANSYS Fluent are used for the flow field and droplet dispersed phase computations. The ice accretion is carried out using an in-house icing solver called GT-ICE. The predictions by GT-ICE are compared to available experimental data, or to predictions by other solvers such as LEWICE and STAR-CCM+.

Hybrid-electric gas turbine generators are considered a promising technology for more efficient and sustainable air transportation. The Ohio State University is leading the NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) Electric Propulsion: Challenges and Opportunities, focused on the design and demonstration of advanced components and systems to enable high-efficiency hybrid turboelectric powertrains in regional aircraft to be deployed in 2030. Within this large effort, the team is optimizing the design of the battery energy storage system (ESS) and, concurrently, developing a supervisory energy management strategy for the hybrid system to reduce fuel burn while mitigating the impact on the ESS life. In this paper, an energy-based model was developed to predict the performance of a battery-hybrid turboelectric distributed-propulsion (BHTeDP) regional jet.

Vertical takeoff and landing vehicle platforms with many small rotors are gaining importance for small UAVs as well as distributed electric propulsion for larger vehicles. To predict vehicle performance, it must be possible to gauge interaction effects. These rotors operate in the less-known regime of low Reynolds number, with different blade geometry. As a first step, two identical commercial UAV rotors from a flight test program are studied in isolation, experimentally and computationally. Load measurements were performed in Georgia Tech’s 2.13 m × 2.74 m wind tunnel. Simulations were done using the RotCFD solver which uses a Navier-Stokes wake computation along with rotor-disc loads calculation using low-Reynolds number blade section data. It is found that in hover, small rotors available in the market vary noticeably in performance at low rotor speeds, the data converging at higher RPM and Reynolds number.

NASA and the FAA conducted two flight campaigns to quantify onboard weather radar measurements with in-situ measurements of high concentrations of ice crystals found in deep convective storms. The ultimate goal of this research was to improve the understanding of high ice water content (HIWC) and develop onboard weather radar processing techniques to detect regions of HIWC ahead of an aircraft to enable tactical avoidance of the potentially hazardous conditions. Both HIWC RADAR campaigns utilized the NASA DC-8 Airborne Science Laboratory equipped with a Honeywell RDR-4000 weather radar and in-situ microphysical instruments to characterize the ice crystal clouds. The purpose of this paper is to summarize how these campaigns were conducted and highlight key results. The first campaign was conducted in August 2015 with a base of operations in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

The blade crossing event of a coaxial counter-rotating rotor is a potential source of noise and impulsive blade loads. Blade crossings occur many times during each rotor revolution. In previous research by the authors, this phenomenon was analyzed by simulating two airfoils passing each other at specified speeds and vertical separation distances, using the compressible Navier-Stokes solver OVERFLOW. The simulations explored mutual aerodynamic interactions associated with thickness, circulation, and compressibility effects. Results revealed the complex nature of the aerodynamic impulses generated by upper/lower airfoil interactions. In this paper, the coaxial rotor system is simulated using two trains of airfoils, vertically offset, and traveling in opposite directions. The simulation represents multiple blade crossings in a rotor revolution by specifying horizontal distances between each airfoil in the train based on the circumferential distance between blade tips.

Our concept studies indicate that a set of reflectors floated in the upper atmosphere can efficiently reduce radiant forcing into the atmosphere. The cost of reducing the radiant forcing sufficiently to reverse the current rate of Global Warming, is well within reach of global financial resources. This paper summarizes the overall concept and focuses on one of the reflector concepts, the Flying Carpet. The basic element of this reflector array is a rigidized reflector sheet towed behind and above a solar-powered, distributed electric-propelled flying wing. The vehicle rises above 30,480 m (100,000 ft) in the daytime by solar power. At night, the very low wing loading of the sheets enables the system to stay well above the controlled airspace ceiling of 18,288 m (60,000 ft). The concept study results are summarized before going into technical issues in implementation. Flag instability is studied in initial wind tunnel experiments.

A direct solution to Global Warming would be to reflect a part of sunlight back into Space. A system tradeoff study is being developed with three of the concepts that are being evaluated as long-endurance high-altitude reflectors. The first concept is a high aspect ratio solar powered flying wing towing reflector sheets. This concept is named “Flying Carpet”. Second is a centrifugally stretched high altitude solar reflector (CSHASR). The CSHASR has 4 rotors made of reflector sheets with a hub stretching to 60 percent of the radius, held together by an ultralight quad-rotor structure. Each rotor is powered by a solar-electric motor. A variation on this concept, forced by nighttime descent rate concerns, is powered by tip-mounted solar panels and propellers with some battery storage augmenting rotational inertia as well as energy storage. The third concept is an Aerostatically Balanced Reflector (ABR) sheet, held up by hydrogen balloons.

This paper brings together three special aspects of bluff-body aeromechanics. Experiments using our Continuous Rotation method have developed a knowledge base on the 6-degree-of-freedom aerodynamic loads on over 50 different configurations including parametric variations of canonical shapes, and several practical shapes of interest. Models are mounted on a rod attached to a stepper motor placed on a 6-DOF load cell in a low speed wind tunnel. The aerodynamic loads are ensemble-averaged as phase-resolved azimuthal variations. The load component variations are obtained as discrete Fourier series for each load component versus azimuth about each of 3 primary axes. This capability has enabled aeromechanical simulation of the dynamics of roadable vehicles slung below rotorcraft. In this paper, we explore the genesis of the loads on a CONEX model, as well as models of a short and long container, using the “ROTCFD” family of unstructured Navier-Stokes solvers.

In early phases of conceptual design stages for developing a new car in the modern automobile industry, the lack of systematic methodology to efficiently converge to an agreement between the aesthetics and aerodynamic performance tremendously increases budget and time. During these procedures, one of the most important tasks is to create geometric information which is versatilely morphable upon the demands of both of stylists and engineers. In this perspective, this paper proposes a Spline-based Modeling Algorithm (SMA) to implement into performing aerodynamic design optimization research based on CFD analysis. Once a 3-perspective schematic of a car is given, SMA regresses the backbone boundary lines by using optimum polynomial interpolation methods with the best goodness of fit, eventually reconstructing the 3D shape by linearly interpolating from the extracted boundaries minimizing loss of important geometric features.

The atomization and initial spray formation processes in direct injection engines are not well understood due to the experimental and computational challenges associated with resolving these processes. Although different physical mechanisms, such as aerodynamic-induced instabilities and nozzle-generated turbulence and cavitation, have been proposed in the literature to describe these processes, direct validation of the theoretical basis of these models under engine-relevant conditions has not been possible to date. Recent developments in droplet sizing measurement techniques offer a new opportunity to evaluate droplet size distributions formed in the central and peripheral regions of the spray. There is therefore a need to understand how these measurements might be utilized to validate unobservable physics in the near nozzle-region.

The Elytron 2S is a prototype aircraft concept to allow VTOL capabilities together with fixed wing aircraft performance. It has a box wing design with a centrally mounted tilt-wing supporting two rotors. This paper explores the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft using computational fluid dynamics in hover and low speed forward flight, as well as analyzing the unique control system in place for hover. The results are then used to build an input set for NASA Design and Analysis if Rotorcraft software allowing trim and flight stability and control estimations to be made with SIMPLI-FLYD.

Coaxial rotors are finding use in advanced rotorcraft concepts. Combined with lift offset rotor technology, they offer a solution to the problems of dynamic stall and reverse flow that often limit single rotor forward flight speeds. In addition, coaxial rotorcraft systems do not need a tail rotor, a major boon during operation in confined areas. However, the operation of two counter-rotating rotors in close proximity generates many possible aerodynamic interactions between rotor blades, blades and vortices, and between vortices. With two rotors, the parameter design space is very large, and requires efficient computations as well as basic experiments to explore aerodynamics of a coaxial rotor and the effects on performance, loads, and acoustics.

Combat aircraft maneuvering at high angles of attack or in landing approach are likely to encounter conditions where the flow over the swept wings is yawed. This paper examines the effect of yaw on the spectra of turbulence above and aft of the wing, in the region where fins and control surfaces are located. Prior work has shown the occurrence of narrowband velocity fluctuations in this region for most combat aircraft models, including those with twin fins. Fin vibration and damage has been traced to excitation by such narrowband fluctuations. The narrowband fluctuations themselves have been traced to the wing surface. The issue in this paper is the effect of yaw on these fluctuations, as well as on the aerodynamic loads on a wing, without including the perturbations due to the airframe.

The interest in flying cars comes with the question of characterizing aerodynamic loads on shapes that go beyond traditional aircraft shapes. When carried as slung loads under aircraft, vehicles can encounter severe aerodynamic loads, which may also cause them to go into divergent oscillations that can threaten the vehicle and aircraft. Slung loads can encounter the wind at arbitrary attitudes. Flight test certification for every vehicle-aircraft combination is prohibitive. Characterizing the aerodynamic loads with sufficient resolution for use in dynamic simulation, has in the past been extremely arduous. Sharp changes that drive instabilities arise over small ranges of yaw and pitch. With the Continuous Rotation technique developed by our group, aerodynamic load characterization is viable and efficient. With two well-chosen attitude sweeps and appropriate transformations, the entire 6-DOF load map can be obtained, for several rates.

At high angles of attack, the flow over a swept wing generates counter-rotating vortical features. These features can amplify into a nearly sinusoidal fluctuation of velocity components. The result is excitation of twin-fin buffeting, driven at clearly predictable frequencies, or at nearby lock-in frequencies of the fin structure. This is distinct from the traditional model of fin buffeting as a structural resonant response to broadband, large-amplitude excitation from vortex core bursting. Hot-film anemometry was conducted ahead of the vertical fins of a 1:48 scale model of the F-35B aircraft, in the angle of attack range between 18 and 30 degrees. Auto spectral density functions from these data showed a sharp spectral peak in the flow ahead of the fins for angles of attack between 20 and 28 degrees. Small fences placed on the top surface of the wing eliminated the spectral peak, leaving only a broadband turbulent spectrum.

This paper summarizes the recent development of an adaptive aeroelastic wing shaping control technology called variable camber continuous trailing edge flap (VCCTEF). As wing flexibility increases, aeroelastic interactions with aerodynamic forces and moments become an increasingly important consideration in aircraft design and aerodynamic performance. Furthermore, aeroelastic interactions with flight dynamics can result in issues with vehicle stability and control. The initial VCCTEF concept was developed in 2010 by NASA under a NASA Innovation Fund study entitled “Elastically Shaped Future Air Vehicle Concept,” which showed that highly flexible wing aerodynamic surfaces can be elastically shaped in-flight by active control of wing twist and bending deflection in order to optimize the spanwise lift distribution for drag reduction. A collaboration between NASA and Boeing Research & Technology was subsequently funded by NASA from 2012 to 2014 to further develop the VCCTEF concept.

Loads slung under aircraft can go into divergent oscillations coupling multiple degrees of freedom. Predicting the highest safe flight speed for a vehicle-load combination is a critical challenge, both for military missions over hostile areas, and for evacuation/rescue operations. The primary difficulty was that of obtaining well-resolved airload maps covering the arbitrary attitudes that a slung load may take. High speed rotorcraft using tilting rotors and co-axial rotors can fly at speeds that imply high dynamic pressure, making aerodynamic loads significant even on very dense loads such as armored vehicles, artillery weapons, and ammunition. The Continuous Rotation method demonstrated in our prior work enables routine prediction of divergence speeds. We build on prior work to explore the prediction of divergence speed for practical configurations such as military vehicles, which often have complex bluff body shapes.

The formation of ice over lifting surfaces can affect aerodynamic performance. In the case of helicopters, this loss in lift and the increase in sectional drag forces will have a dramatic effect on vehicle performance. The ability to predict ice accumulation and the resulting degradation in rotor performance is essential to determine the limitations of rotorcraft in icing encounters. The consequences of underestimating performance degradation can be serious and so it is important to produce accurate predictions, particularly for severe icing conditions. The simulation of rotorcraft ice accretion is a challenging multidisciplinary problem that until recently has lagged in development over its counterparts in the fixed wing community. But now, several approaches for the robust coupling of a computational fluid dynamics code, a rotorcraft structural dynamics code and an ice accretion code have been demonstrated.

When the demand for either a region of airspace or an airport approaches or exceeds the available capacity, miles-in-trail (MIT) restrictions are the most frequently issued traffic management initiatives (TMIs) that are used to mitigate these imbalances. Miles-in-trail operations require aircraft in a traffic stream to meet a specific inter-aircraft separation in exchange for maintaining a safe and orderly flow within the stream. This stream of aircraft can be departing an airport, over a common fix, through a sector, on a specific route or arriving at an airport. This study begins by providing a high-level overview of the distribution and causes of arrival MIT restrictions for the top ten airports in the United States. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of the frequency, duration and cause of MIT restrictions impacting the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) from 2009 through 2011.

This paper presents a novel health monitoring and fault adaptive control architecture for an unmanned hexrotor helicopter. The technologies developed to achieve the described level of robust fault contingency management include; 1.) A Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) routine for maximizing the “built-in” fault tolerance that the closed loop flight control system affords, 2.) A two-stage Kalman filter scheme for real-time identification of faults that are masked by control system compensation, and 3.) A reconfigurable control allocation method which compensates for large degradations of the six main motor/rotor assemblies. The fault adaptive control system presented herein has strong robustness against small faults without the need for controller reconfiguration, and strong tolerance of large faults through adaptive accommodation of the fault source and severity.