The Flying Prius

[n2doc]

NASA-Lockheed Martin Corporation
Lockheed Martin’s design for a future supersonic aircraft.

The future of aviation that engineers dreamed about 70 years ago didn’t look much like the present. But it did look a lot like the future of aviation they’re still dreaming of today.

Back in 1938, for instance, Popular Mechanics magazine ran a cover story on “The Flying Wing of the Future,” an amazing machine in which the fuselage was almost indistinguishable from the wide V of the wings. In May of this year, NASA presented the latest thinking from Boeing, General Electric, Northrop Grumman, and MIT about the “down to earth” shape of planes to come in the next 20 to 30 years, with companion studies by Boeing and Lockheed Martin about supersonic transport. Sure enough, one of the MIT proposals is for the Hybrid Wing Body H-Series, an enormous flying wing, and NASA actually has been test-flying a model of something similar, the X-48B, since 2006. At first glance they look like they’re straight out of 1938.

But the operative phrase here is “at first glance.” Basic principles of lift and propulsion are immutable, so certain design features keep coming back. What’s really new is just about everything else that’s likely to go into making the next generation—indeed, the next several generations—of planes: the composites for the bodies; the engines that propel them; the computers that steer them; and, most important, the new economic, environmental, and political imperatives of the 21st century. Manufacturers really have little choice but to produce quieter, safer, more fuel-efficient, and greener machines than ever before—if only they can figure out how.

As almost 1,400 exhibitors gather at the Farnborough Air Show in Britain this week, the usual razzle-dazzle of military hardware, the thunderous fly-overs, and the glitzy presentations of airline luxury won’t be able to obscure the enormous challenges that loom on the horizon. The skies already are saturated with planes and passengers, but traffic is expected to double or even triple by 2050. The stunning disruptions caused by a single volcano in Iceland last spring showed just how delicately balanced, and vulnerable, the whole system has become. Meanwhile, the cost of aviation fuel has quadrupled since the mid-1990s and if, as many predict, the global oil supply continues to grow tighter, those prices could go through the stratosphere.

more

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/16/the-flying-prius.html

[Greyskye]

1. Headline info halfway through article:

Boeing’s SUGAR Volt proposes to use a hybrid propulsion system that, in broad outlines, really is reminiscent of a Prius: the cool-air fans and compressors would be powered part of the time by electric motors that would be charged by the combustion engine.

Rats, I can't retrofit my Prius to fly after all. :(

:rofl:

Good article, interesting stuff.

[TheMadMonk]

2. I'll know they're serious when something is built along these lines.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/05/040512044455.htm

Wind tunnel tests of scale-model humpback whale flippers have revealed that the scalloped, bumpy flipper is a more efficient wing design than is currently used by the aeronautics industry on airplanes. The tests show that bump-ridged flippers do not stall as quickly and produce more lift and less drag than comparably sized sleek flippers.

The tests were reported by biomechanicist Frank Fish of West Chester University, Penn., fluid dynamics engineer Laurens Howle of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University and David Miklosovic and Mark Murray at the U.S. Naval Academy. They reported their findings in the May 2004 issue of Physics of Fluids , published in advance online on March 15, 2004.

In their study, the team first created two approximately 22-inch-tall scale models of humpback pectoral flippers -- one with the characteristic bumps, called tubercles, and one without. The models were machined from thick, clear polycarbonate at Duke University. Testing was conducted in a low speed closed-circuit wind tunnel at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

The sleek flipper performance was similar to a typical airplane wing. But the tubercle flipper exhibited nearly 8 percent better lift properties, and withstood stall at a 40 percent steeper wind angle. The team was particularly surprised to discover that the flipper with tubercles produced as much as 32 percent lower drag than the sleek flipper.

The comment about the thirties is rather apt. Exactly the same rigid forward thinking is visible in Lockhead Martin concept art. Which incidentally looks almost indentical to the "Star Raker" on the cover of the book with that name.

We start with an idea of what we want and what we "think" it will look like and then try to bring the two together.

No one in their right mind would have thought to deliberately interrupt the airflow over a wing in order to improve its performance and yet nature "knew" better.

[Greyskye]

3. Whale Power: More Efficient Fan Blades Mimic Humpback Fins

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/biomimicry-fan-blades-mimic-humpback-fins.php

"She estimates fans incorporating WhalePower's design use 20 percent less energy and are better at moving the air around, and now that fans are incorporating the design, WhalePower will continue to work to apply the idea to wind turbines; it's a slower process because of the certification and testing required with the clean power generators."



Thanks for that link, MadMonk. I wouldn't have come across this if I hadn't been looking up pictures of tubercles to see exactly how big they were relative to the wing/fin they were on.