Aircraft drag reduction through extended formation flight
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- 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.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2011 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Ning, Simeon Andrew | |
|---|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics | |
| Primary advisor | Kroo, Ilan | |
| Thesis advisor | Kroo, Ilan | |
| Thesis advisor | Alonso, Juan José, 1968- | |
| Thesis advisor | Lele, Sanjiva K. (Sanjiva Keshava), 1958- | |
| Advisor | Alonso, Juan José, 1968- | |
| Advisor | Lele, Sanjiva K. (Sanjiva Keshava), 1958- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | S. Andrew Ning. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2011. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2011 by Simeon Andrew Ning
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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