Aircraft Drag Reduction Through Extended Formation Flight

Aircraft Drag Reduction Through Extended Formation Flight

Author: Simeon Andrew Ning

Publisher: Stanford University

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13:

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Formation flight has the potential to significantly reduce the fuel consumption of long range flights, even with existing aircraft. This research explores a safer approach to formation flying of transport aircraft, which we term extended formation flight. Extended formations take advantage of the persistence of cruise wakes and extend the streamwise separation between the aircraft by at least five wingspans. Classical aerodynamic theory suggests that the total induced drag of the formation should not change as the streamwise separation is increased, but the large separation distances of extended formation flight violate the simple assumptions of these theorems. At large distances, considerations such as wake rollup, atmospheric effects on circulation decay, and vortex motion become important to consider. We first examine the wake rollup process in the context of extended formations and develop an appropriate physics-based model. Using this model, this dissertation addresses three aspects of formation flight: longitudinally extended formations, compressibility effects, and formations of heterogeneous aircraft. Uncertainty analysis is used to investigate the induced drag savings of extended formations in the presence of variation in atmospheric properties, limitations of positioning accuracy, and uncertainty in model parameters. Next, the methodology is integrated with an Euler solver to assess the impact of compressibility while flying in formation. Finally, we examine the important considerations for optimally arranging formations of non-identical aircraft.


Aircraft Drag Reduction: An Overview

Aircraft Drag Reduction: An Overview

Author: Mohsen Jahanmiri

Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing

Published: 2013-01

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 9783659336423

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Aircraft drag reduction is a great challenge but there is certainly room for improvements. The drag breakdown of a civil transport aircraft shows that the skin friction drag and the lift-induced drag constitute the two main sources of drag, approximately one half and one third of the total drag for a typical long range aircraft at cruise conditions. This is why specific research on this topics have been initiated and it seems that Hybrid Laminar Flow technology and innovative wing tip devices offer the greatest potential. The aim of this review manuscript is to highlight the state of the art in aeronautical drag reduction, and also describe several emerging drag-reduction approaches that are either active or reactive/interactive.


Aerodynamic Drag Reduction Technologies

Aerodynamic Drag Reduction Technologies

Author: Peter Thiede

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 3540453598

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------------------------------------------------------------ This volume contains the Proceedings of the CEAS/DragNet European Drag Reduction Conference held on 19-21 June 2000 in Potsdam, Germany. This conference, succeeding the European Fora on Laminar Flow Technology 1992 and 1996, was initiated by the European Drag Reduction Network (DragNet) and organised by DGLR under the auspice of CEAS. The conference addressed the recent advances in all areas of drag reduction research, development, validation and demonstration including laminar flow technology, adaptive wing concepts, turbulent and induced drag reduction, separation control and supersonic flow aspects. This volume which comprises more than 40 conference papers is of particular interest to engineers, scientists and students working in the aeronautics industry, research establishments or academia.


Turbulent Drag Reduction by Surfactant Additives

Turbulent Drag Reduction by Surfactant Additives

Author: Feng-Chen Li

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-01-10

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1118181115

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Turbulent drag reduction by additives has long been a hot research topic. This phenomenon is inherently associated with multifold expertise. Solutions of drag-reducing additives are usually viscoelastic fluids having complicated rheological properties. Exploring the characteristics of drag-reduced turbulent flows calls for uniquely designed experimental and numerical simulation techniques and elaborate theoretical considerations. Pertinently understanding the turbulent drag reduction mechanism necessities mastering the fundamentals of turbulence and establishing a proper relationship between turbulence and the rheological properties induced by additives. Promoting the applications of the drag reduction phenomenon requires the knowledge from different fields such as chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, municipal engineering, and so on. This book gives a thorough elucidation of the turbulence characteristics and rheological behaviors, theories, special techniques and application issues for drag-reducing flows by surfactant additives based on the state-of-the-art of scientific research results through the latest experimental studies, numerical simulations and theoretical analyses. Covers turbulent drag reduction, heat transfer reduction, complex rheology and the real-world applications of drag reduction Introduces advanced testing techniques, such as PIV, LDA, and their applications in current experiments, illustrated with multiple diagrams and equations Real-world examples of the topic’s increasingly important industrial applications enable readers to implement cost- and energy-saving measures Explains the tools before presenting the research results, to give readers coverage of the subject from both theoretical and experimental viewpoints Consolidates interdisciplinary information on turbulent drag reduction by additives Turbulent Drag Reduction by Surfactant Additives is geared for researchers, graduate students, and engineers in the fields of Fluid Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering, Turbulence, Chemical Engineering, Municipal Engineering. Researchers and practitioners involved in the fields of Flow Control, Chemistry, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Experimental Fluid Dynamics, and Rheology will also find this book to be a much-needed reference on the topic.