• November 14, 2016
  • 4:00 p.m.
  • 117A Surge Building
  • Mr. Anthony Washburn
  • NASA-Langley Research Center
  • Faculty Host: Dr. Pradeep Raj

Abstract:

For some time, the technology area generically called Active Flow Control (AFC) has been demonstrated on sample problems in sub-scale experiments and numerical simulations. Some amazing possibilities have been identified but so far very little to no product implementation on large commercial vehicles has occurred. One of the difficulties aircraft manufacturers have with the introduction of radically new technology is proper assessment of the value proposition at early stages of vehicle conceptual and preliminary design. In the case of AFC, this is largely because of questions about the scalability of the actuators and physics to produce the desired effect, uncertainty about the full-scale system integration costs, and the requirements of reliability/redundancy for product integration. The presentation will focus on NASA’s efforts to address and overcome the barriers to implementation of active separation control on commercial transports and will include outcomes from the 2015 NASA/Boeing 757 ecoDemonstrator flight tests.