STTR Phase I: Integrated High Lift Propulsor

这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）第一阶段项目的广泛影响是使先进动力升降机飞机的经济实惠和节能设计成为可能，创造能够将人员和物品运送到新地点的飞机。该项目使运输成本和排放的降低成为可能，这可能确保先进的空中交通市场（预计到2030年将增长到1200亿美元）发展出与社区兼容、与经济和社会相关的交通能力。该项目开发的基本空气动力学技术可能适用于各种飞机尺寸和任务，为国防、公共安全和人道主义角色提供新的能力，并通过在城市、郊区和服务不足的农村地区实现负担得起的先进机动性和物流，提高公众的生活质量。技术效率的提高可以在减少环境影响的同时实现这些好处。STTR第一阶段项目旨在确认一种新的分布式电力推进方法的可行性，该方法将低速性能的高升力与低阻力相结合，并使用一种新型集成推进器进行巡航效率高的机翼设计。该项目将探索螺旋桨和机翼之间复杂且尚未完全理解的空气动力学相互作用，这是技术和商业成功的关键。技术目标包括：描述滑流对机翼压力分布和边界层特性的影响，螺旋桨和机翼配置和位置的变化对高升力性能的影响，以及配置的飞机水平效应和权衡。该项目旨在通过结合实验风洞研究和计算流体动力学（CFD）模拟和分析来实现这些技术目标，以彻底了解和表征复杂的流动物理及其对飞机性能和设计的影响。这对推进螺旋桨-机翼相互作用空气动力学领域具有重要意义。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to enable the affordable and energy-efficient design of advanced powered lift aircraft, creating aircraft capable of transporting people and things to new locations. The reduction in transport cost and emissions made possible by this project may ensure that the advanced air mobility market, expected to grow to $120 Billion by 2030, develops community-compatible, economically- and socially-relevant mobility capabilities. The fundamental aerodynamic technology developed by this project may be applicable to a wide range of aircraft sizes and missions, enabling new capability in defense, public safety, and humanitarian roles as well as improving the quality of life for the public by enabling affordable, advanced mobility and logistics in urban, suburban, and underserved rural areas. The increased efficiency of the technology may enable these benefits to be realized while reducing the environmental impacts.This STTR Phase I project seeks to confirm the feasibility of a new method of distributed electric propulsion for lift augmentation that combines high lift for low-speed performance with low drag, cruise-efficient wing design using a novel integrated propulsor. The project will explore the complex and incompletely understood aerodynamic interaction of a propeller and wing, which is key to technical and commercial success. The technical objectives include: characterizing the slipstream influence on the wing pressure distribution and boundary layer characteristics, the influence of variations in propeller and wing configuration and location on high lift performance, and the aircraft level effects and tradeoffs of the configuration. The project seeks to meet these technical objectives with a combination of experimental wind tunnel research and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and analyses to thoroughly understand and characterize the complex flow physics and their impacts on aircraft performance and design. The effort may advance the propeller-wing interaction aerodynamics field.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.