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In the United States today, more passengers and cargo are moved by air than ever before. Over the next 10 to 15 years, the total volume of air traffic is expected to double or even triple. The ability of the nation to benefit from continued growth in aeronautics depends on the development of future air vehicles that can meet demanding environmental and performance challenges.
The Fundamental Aeronautics Program has the principal objective of overcoming today's national challenges in air transportation. The program develops focused technological capabilities, starting with the most basic knowledge of underlying phenomena through validation and verification of advanced concepts and technologies at the component and systems level. To achieve this objective, the program:
- Invests in the fundamental core competencies of aeronautics
- Openly involves the external aeronautics community to support the best technological talent and ideas
- Widely disseminates research results for the greatest possible national benefit and to stimulate new advances in aeronautics technology
Research efforts within the program benefit the public directly in a variety of ways:
- Providing cleaner, quieter techniques and concepts for both subsonic and supersonic vehicles
- Developing revolutionary configurations, lighter and stiffer materials, improved propulsion systems, and advanced concepts for drag reduction that target aircraft efficiency
- Energizing the aeronautics workforce of today and tomorrow through significant research opportunities in all Fundamental Aeronautics projects
- Advancing hypersonic planetary Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) research to benefit the nation's Vision for Space Exploration
The Fundamental Aeronautics Program encompasses the principles of flight in any atmosphere, and at any speed. Physics-based, multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization (MDAO) tools will be developed that make it possible to evaluate radically new vehicle designs and to assess, with known uncertainties, the potential impact of innovative technologies and concepts on a vehicle's overall performance. The development of advanced component technologies will realize revolutionary improvements in noise, emissions, and performance. The program also supports NASA's human and robotic exploration missions by advancing knowledge in aeronautical areas critical to EDL.
ARMD oversees the Fundamental Aeronautics Program, and execution occurs principally at four NASA field centers (Ames Research Center, Langley Research Center, Glenn Research Center, and Dryden Flight Research Center).
Fundamental Aeronautics is configured into the Subsonic Fixed Wing, Subsonic Rotary Wing, Supersonics, and Hypersonics Projects, and applies a Four-Step Process to achieve its objectives. The Subsonic Fixed Wing Project
The goal of the Subsonic Fixed Wing Project is to conduct long-term, cutting-edge research in the core competencies of the subsonic fixed wing regime, thereby producing knowledge, data, capabilities, technologies, and design tools at the foundational, discipline, multidiscipline, and systems levels that will enable improved prediction methods and technologies for lower noise, lower emissions (including NOx, CO2, water vapor, volatiles, unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter, and soot), and higher performance for subsonic aircraft. Higher performance includes energy efficiency and operability technologies that enable advanced airframe and engine systems.
The Subsonic Fixed Wing Project has identified the following key technical challenge areas that will be combined into higher level multidisciplinary challenges: material science and mechanics of materials and structures; reacting flow physics; control methods and strategies; dynamic modeling and simulation; acoustics physics; aeroelasticity; computational methods; fluid dynamics and heat transfer; and new experimental methods and techniques. System studies indicate that significant noise and emissions reductions, while still improving performance, are attainable for future generations of conventional aircraft. The development of unconventional systems, such as the hybrid wing body, could further improvements. Success in these technical challenges will result in major changes to engine cycle and airframe configurations, thus broadening the technology trade space for a variety of sizes of subsonic vehicles (from transport to very light jets) and new capabilities (e.g., extreme short takeoff and landing) enabling the national vision of tripling throughput with no increase in environmental impact.
The Subsonic Rotary Wing Project
The goal of the Subsonic Rotary Wing Project is to conduct long-term, cutting-edge research in the core competencies of the subsonic rotary wing regime, thereby producing knowledge, data, capabilities, technologies, and design tools at the foundational, discipline, multidiscipline, and systems levels that will enable improved prediction methods and technologies for lower noise, lower emissions, and higher performance for rotary wing aircraft. Higher performance includes improved speed, range, payload capacity, propulsion efficiency, and control systems for safe operations. Advances in physics-based prediction capability will ultimately lead to a more robust industry ability to develop rotorcraft vehicles that fly as designed.
The specific objectives of the research are driven by five key technical challenge areas: power transmission and generation; control theory and information processing and modeling; fluid mechanics, dynamics, and aero-structural coupling; acoustics physics; and solid mechanics and advanced materials. These technical challenges are relevant to a broad range of industry and government programs. Such challenges inherently force the integration of multiple disciplines, and involve technical issues that are beyond the reach of current prediction tools. Each of the technical challenges brings together the analytical methods and experimental validation data required to advance the state of the art in a multidiscipline environment. Innovative solutions to these technical challenges, coupled with the increased ability to predict with certainty the solutions, will drive breakthrough technology for the rotorcraft industry.
The Supersonics Project
The goal of the Supersonics Project is to conduct long-term, cutting-edge research in the core competencies of the supersonic regime, thereby producing knowledge, data, capabilities, technologies, and design tools at the foundational, discipline, multidiscipline, and systems levels. These research outputs will address the technical challenges for two supersonic vehicle classes: practical supersonic cruise vehicles, and supersonic descent for High Mass Mars Entry Systems (HMMES).
The Supersonics Project is organized along the following major technical challenges that have been identified for the two vehicle classes: efficiency (supersonic cruise, light weight, and durability at high temperature); environmental challenges (airport noise, sonic boom, high-altitude emissions); performance challenges (aero-propulso-servo-elastic analysis and design); entry descent and landing challenges (supersonic deceleration); and multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization challenges. Breakthroughs in these challenge areas will enable overland supersonic cruise with civilian and military application and exploration systems of high mass and precision landing in support of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration.
The Hypersonics Project
The Hypersonics Project is motivated by the fact that all access to Earth or planetary orbit, and all entry from orbit into Earth's atmosphere or any planet with an atmosphere, requires flight through the hypersonic regime. The goal of the project is to conduct long-term, cutting-edge research in the core competencies of the hypersonic regime, thereby producing knowledge, data, capabilities, and design tools at the foundational, discipline, multidiscipline, and systems levels. These research outputs will address the technical challenges for two high-payoff NASA-unique missions: Highly Reliable Reusable Launch Systems (HRRLS) and HMMES.
Cutting-edge hypersonics research on HRRLS will enable sustained hypersonic flight through the atmosphere. The research focusing on HMMES will result in the development of technologies and concepts that can enable the safe and accurate delivery of large payloads to the surface of Mars. This effort will facilitate the EDL phase of both human and robotic planetary missions and is closely aligned with the long-term goals of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration.
The Hypersonics Project will focus its research on solving some of the hardest challenges in hypersonics, such as the development of materials for airframe and propulsion applications that can withstand severe temperatures; the development of predictive models for compressible flow, turbulence, heating, ablation, and combustion; the creation of advanced control techniques for vehicles that fly in the hypersonic flow regime; and the generation of new experimental techniques that can be used to validate our theoretical and computational models. In addition, the project will work toward realizable propulsion systems that integrate high-speed turbine engines and scramjets, and will tie together all of the interactions among the airframe, inlet, nozzle, and propulsion systems using a Physics-Based MDAO approach. Technology developed under the Hypersonics Project may also help the Department of Defense achieve its goal of reaching targets from the air with global reach, quick reaction, persistence, and significant payload. |
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