April 2009 Archives

How much fuel would be saved by introducing a new single aisle successor two years early?

Volker Gollnick, head of the air transport concepts and technology evaluation institute at DLR, the German Aerospace Centre, reckons he knows the answer: 22 million tonnes over 25 years.

Speaking at the recent Aviation and Environment Summit, Gollnick told delegates that the introduction of a new A320 or Boeing 737 aircraft two years early - albeit with a little less advanced technology on board - could decouple the fuel consumption associated with the expected three per cent growth in the aircraft type within the global fleet.

Using 2008 as a baseline, the early introduction in 2014 rather than 2016, could save 22 million tonnes of kerosene over 25 years

"This is something whose potential we should keep in mind when we talk about the introduction of new aircraft and new technology into the world fleet. There is the real potential to be earlier in producing new kinds of aircraft," he says.

"So product innovation has good potential to improve the economical efficiency of the world fleet. If we tried to develop the global picture of this vision, the decoupling of world narrowbody fleet growth in terms of fuel burn reduction in early introduction could really contribute to the entire reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. It is a great opportunity to come closer to the goals we have formulated in terms of the ACARE goals."

Watch the video here in tandem with his slide presentation.

The gloom surrounding the airline industry has certainly not relieved the pressure on Airbus and Boeing to progress their narrowbody succession plans.

In fact, early introduction of the next generation narrowbody is becoming a serious issue with major airline groups such as Air Canada and SAS admitting they are examining Bombardier's CSeries as they start to seek replacements for their short-haul fleets.

Airlines have emissions targets themselves and are probably more ambitious in their vision than either Airbus and Boeing.

Last year, SAS launched an ambitious strategy, targeting a 20% reduction in its total carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. This goal assumes annual passenger growth of 4%, coupled with savings stemming evenly from technological developments - such as alternative fuels, next-generation aircraft and engines - and operational measures.

But now SAS, which styles itself as "the world's most environmentally conscious airline", says it may have to revise its climate-based fleet strategy since both Airbus and Boeing have pushed back their single-aisle successor timelines to the back end of the next decade.

KLM chief executive Peter Hartman also recently urged the two rival airframers to clarify their single-aisle replacement strategies,

 

It's very rare that far-out technological solutions represent anything that can be realistically achieved in the near-term but Performance Based Navigation is one area where significant efficiency gains can be made swiftly.

In Flight's latest Environment Special Report, we examine the recent deal to speed the roll-out of next-generation satellite-based technology which will be air navigation's principal contribution to improving airspace efficiency.

In the process of asking how significant such technology will be in helping to shrink aviation's carbon footprint, those nice guys at US procedures design specialist Naverus sent us some very cool videos of what can be achieved when using state-of-the-art navigation techniques so here are some of our favourites:

 Meanwhile, Airservices Australia earlier this month said it was planning the next stage of its required navigation performance (RNP) project that it hopes will lead to a national roll-out of RNP procedures at major airports throughout the country.

One potential technological breakthrough in aerospace could hail from the automotive world, according to David Holland Smith who heads "horizon scanning" within the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).

He spoke at a recent Royal Aeronautical Society conference on the technology challenges of a future operational environment and the E-spring is a key area to which some of the MoD's brightest boffins are turning their attention.

E-springs are according to their inventor - Salah Elmoselhy, a postgraduate researcher at Cambridge University's Department of Engineering - set to shape the next generation of vehicle suspension systems. And industry tends to agree with his vision too, electing Salah as a laureate of the 2006 SAE Transactions Honor from the Society of Automotive Engineers, in recognition of his research into E-springs.

Here is his take on suspension design: traditionally a compromise between three conflicting requirements: passenger comfort, road holding and load carrying, vehicle suspension springs absorb road shock by compressing or extending when vehicle wheels encounter bumps and dips in the road.

The weight needed to depress a spring a certain amount is called the spring rate. A spring with a low spring rate is soft and can absorb a lot of energy, so generally increases passenger comfort. However, it can decrease road holding and carry only light loads. A heavy, stiff spring with a high spring rate performs well under a heavy load, but can make for a bumpy ride with a light load.

A spring rate can be chosen to achieve a compromise, but a better result can be gained if the spring rate of the suspension can be tailored to increase with deflection.

The sections in Salah's E-shaped spring can be designed to produce the required variation in spring rate. Some sections can be profiled to flex easily under light loads and others to provide greater stiffness as the load increases. This can be done without any part of the spring being subjected to undue stresses, which increases the spring's longevity compared with conventional solutions. Two E-springs can be combined in a compact space to create further options for tuning the suspension. Watch the video to get a better idea of what is involved.

The benefits? 

• Weight reduction of 85% leading to reduce fuel consumption
  
• Space requirement reduction of 75% leaving additional space which could be used, for example, for wider tires, snow chains or storing a spare wheel in automotive applications 
  
• Adjustable spring-rate in the same compact space allowance allowing the suspension system to deal with variable loads and increasing passenger comfort
  
• Eliminating the cost of a heavy duty hydraulic damper
  
• Improved fatigue performance.

And don't be tempted to limit the E-spring's application to vehicle suspension systems, think also about their scaled use in tiny mechanical devices such as valves, gears, and actuators embedded in semiconductor chips....

 

A source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste. Sounds too good to be true?

Well, in the search for differentiating technologies - such as gob-smackingly advanced power sources, it's pays to look outside the singular domain of aerospace, according to David Holland Smith who heads "horizon scanning" within the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).

This agency of the Ministry of Defence exists to supply the very best, impartial, scientific and technical research and advice to its ministerial client as well as other government departments.

Speaking at the Royal Aeronautical Society's recent conference on the technology challenges of the new operational environment, Holland Smith highlighted some key areas to which some of the MoD's brightest boffins are turning their attention.  This is one: hydrino power, a radical enough proposition to turn modern physics completely on its head.



It's the brainchild of Randell Mills, a Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumnus, whose company Blacklight Power claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel.

Dr Mills claims to have produced a new form of hydrogen, the simplest of all the atoms, with just a single proton circled by one electron. Based on a new chemical process, in Mills's "hydrino", the electron sits a little closer to the proton than normal, and the catalytic formation of new atoms releases huge amounts the latent energy of the hydrogen atom.

The problem, as highlighted by The Guardian newspaper, is that, according to the rules of quantum mechanics - the physics that governs the behaviour of atoms - the idea is theoretically impossible.

Holland Smith says, however, that web sources such as the Hydrino Study Group are continually being tracked for potential developments. "Key innovations typically comprise of a number of sub units which come together like pieces of a mosaic," he explains.
 

Researchers in Canada have unveiled plans for a factory that will use nanotechnology to extract cellulose from wood and use it to form composite materials for aircraft.

And as the report points out, it's not so implausible when you consider that Boeing and Airbus are using significant amounts of carbon composite materials in their latest programmes. 

Pic: Mr A.V. Roe standing infront of his Avro No.1 Triplane powered by a 24h.p. Antoinette engine had the right idea.

The factory which has been designed by FP Innovations, a nonprofit research organization supporting Canada's forestry industry, uses a process extracts cellulose particles just 20 nanometres long and 20 nanometres wide, and combined with other materials, the fibres are tough enough to form a new generation of composite materials.

If you want to learn a little more about the sort of future composite technology Airbus is, for example, currently studying, listen again to the Institute of Mechanical Engineering's recent John Player Lecture where Roger Digby who is Head of Materials and Processes Integration hailed the composite hybrid airframe as an evolutionary step in the European manufacturer's 'Intelligent' aiframe philosophy.

He also outlined the potential benefits of nanotechnology in the airframes of the future such as improved physical and mechanical properties in composite structures, as well as multifunctionality and high performance characteristics.

Called Meeting the Challenge: A380, A350XWB and Beyond, watch the video here in tandem with the slide presentation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

United Airlines today says it will bump severely overweight passengers from sold-out flights.

Passengers who are too large to fit comfortably in a single coach seat will soon be required to buy two tickets on the next flight or upgrade to larger business class seats, if United's flight attendants can't find two open seats for them.

The report says Chicago-based United decided to adopt the tougher policy after receiving more than 700 complaints last year from passengers who suffered because the person next to them had invaded their territory.

This comes as no surprise to Future Proof who flagged this up recently as a growing concern - although not over passenger comfort concerns - rather over the safety of overloaded flights.

International aviation standard-setting body ICAO actually does have weight standards according to region and ethnicity with Asians weighing less than North Americans, for example, although there hasn't been a major change in the regional weight index for many years.

Airlines can however apply their own standards which vary by operator although generally it's around 85kg including carry-on bags with the ICAO upper margin around 100kg - 80kg for the passenger, 20kg for carry on baggage.

Regardless of the sector being flown, or by which aircraft, weight variations can therefore be quite dramatic and the demographic distribution of travellers and regional weight changes since the 1970s all point to the fact that a more specific method of calculating weight will be required eventually.

Of course, there are bound to be strong public perception issues.

A former flying instructor confided recently that his employer had had a standard approach for loading up tourist flights, which involved making a best guess with the added phrase 'Excuse me, Madame, do you weigh between 40kg and 55kg'.

"We then just worked out the weight and balance based on the upper limit, everything else was a bonus," he reckoned.

All strength to UK firm Reaction Engines with the news that they're to pocket a cool €1 million from the European Space Agency to help develop an air-breathing rocket engine that could one day help fulfill the decades-old Skylon plan.

 

 

 

 

The space plane Skylon which is designed to take off and land on a runway like a conventional jet would according to React's managing director Alan Bond, achieve the as yet impossible dream of transforming the economics of space travel making it affordable for fee-paying citizenry with a yen to boldly go.

 

But there are a few aspects of space travel that the wannabe cosmic cognoscenti would be wise to consider according to a report posted on React's very own website. Called Considerations for Passenger Transport by Advanced Spaceplanes, the advent of the reusable tourist spaceship to replace traditional throw-away rockets raises a not inconsiderable number of issues.

 

Take for instance, the small issue of the space environment being overwhelmingly hostile to life.

 

"Add confinement and isolation in a fragile habitat - whether a space transport vehicle like Skylon, a space station, or a space hotel - a vulnerable life support system, and the remoteness of help and rescue, and you have the ultimate tourist challenge," the report points out.

 

It's true, spend any significant period of time in this environment and you even start losing bone and muscle mass, your cardiovascular system starts to "decondition", you develop space sickness that may last several days, and you are exposed to a radiation hazard orders of magnitude greater than on Earth. And don't forget the psychological and sociological problems; you won't be able to suddenly decide you've had enough, and go home.

 

Even so there are plenty of fun ways to spend your weightless space sojourn.

 

The report points out that darts could be a pretty popular game in space, and hilarious if the dart thrower is not secured as throwing initiates rotations around the body's centre of gravity. Board games can be played too provided pieces are securely anchored ...that could even stop Grandpa cheating at space chess.

 

Then there is always reading, writing, or the most popular pastime of all - just looking out of the window.

 

If indeed there are any windows...

 

Psychological factors will have to be taken into account here as few people like being confined in a small, probably windowless space, over which they have no control so views of the outside world may well have to be supplied by TV monitors.

 

The first space tourists will need to be a hardy, brave, and carefully selected

group of people who are able to withstand the psychological, emotional as well as physical challenges of seeing Earth from low Earth orbit and the blackness of space, in a micro-gravity environment.

 

For more on air-breathing technology and what it could mean for the future of spaceflight, read New Scientist magazine.

 

See React Engine's Gallery for more Skylon images.

 

 

Now, it may not be the most glamorous side of aircraft development but you have to admit that for every new aircraft rolling off the production lines, some old wreck has to be retired, and recycled in an environmentally expedient fashion.

The Mojave boneyard in the California desert is a case in point. This is where old aircraft go to die - a wasteland of decrepit planes, titanic heaps of titanium and aluminum waiting to be scrapped for metal in India or China. Alternatively, have a peek at this video from CNN if you feel the need to do your bit for Mother Earth by decking out your man-pad out in true Austin Powers-style kitsch. 

Of course, there is an altogether more orthodox take on aircraft recycling as featured in Flight International magazine as well as an interesting new report from the UK aviation research initiative Omega which has studied the environmental aspects of fleet turnover, retirement and life cycle that have an actual influence on the rate of technology development.

The researchers conclude that stepping up that rate might be a useful policy lever for reducing emissions via fleet turnover, whereas increasing fuel-related costs though carbon trading, may have much more disappointing effect.

They also reckon that modifications over the course of an aircraft's life have historically had a minimal effect on global emissions with the net result of all historical re-engining of aircraft, a paltry carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 0.1 per cent.

A study of the rate of aircraft leaving the global fleet further suggests that high fuel prices and the availability of new aircraft programmes are far more influential factors than noise and local air quality regulations.

The reality of that could be enough to steal both Airbus and Boeing's mojo ...

 

 

 

The Engineer reports today that a canard aircraft design that claims to push the boundaries of performance and fuel economy is nearing completion following collaborative testing with Cambridge University.

 

Initially conceived by aeronautical engineers, Tony Bishop and Giotto Castelli, the e-Go aircraft has been created in response to efforts by the UK Civil Aviation Authority to promote light aircraft design in the UK.

Bishop says the challenge of developing a lightweight and highly resilient airframe has taken structural and aerodynamic technology to the limits.

Using the latest pre-preg carbon fibre that can be cured at temperatures as low as 65°C. the team used the material in remarkably small quantities to produce very thin webs. However, they still had to stabilise the structure and reduce the weight with a carbon cloth pre-impregnated with resin.

'Fortunately, recently they've come out with a pre-preg carbon fibre that can be cured below the melting point of foam, so we're co-curing it with the foam, which is, as far as we know, probably a first," says Bishop.

Engine maker GE Aviation has just announced it is using durable, lightweight composite components in the hot section of a jet engine, a veritable technical achievement that has eluded the engineering community for many moons.

The business says that the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team's F136 development engine for the Joint Strike Fighter now features third-stage, low-pressure turbine vanes made by GE from ceramic matrix composites (CMC).

GE - Aviation, with responsibility for 60 percent of the F136 program, is developing the core compressor and coupled high-pressure/low-pressure turbine system components, controls and accessories.

GE Aviation is pretty excited about CMC development and is applying it as an enabling technology in several of its private and government-funded engine demonstrator programmes.

The news could lead to the first commercial use of CMCs in a jet engine's hot section (combustor and turbine areas) when a F136-powered JSF begins flight testing in 2010.

If flight testing proves as succesful as GE hopes, CMC components could well become a civil cornerstone for the company's next-generation jet engines for narrow-body, regional, and business jets.

The benefits of ceramic turbine components work by significantly increasing the efficiency of engines through both higher temperature capability and lower ceramic density.

There is a catch, however. Ceramics are also well known for their tendency to fail in a brittle, catastrophic fashion so GE scientists at GE Global Research, GE Aviation and GE Energy have been working to develop CMC materials that combine the high temperature resistance of ceramics with the mechanical toughness normally associated with metals.

GE researchers have used silicon carbide fibres, roughly 1/6th the diameter of a human hair, to reinforce a silicon carbide matrix and give a strong and tough ceramic composite material.

Check out this video on GE's ballistic impact test posted on the GE Global Research blog From Edison's Desk which shows how careful engineering of the bonding between the fibres and matrix yields a CMC material that is many times tougher than traditional ceramics.

    

 

If you chanced to read about Brussels's latest climate-bonkers effort to overturn sensible aviation safety standards by banning halon fire extinguishers, you'll surely be interested in this... 

US engineers are developing the next-generation of firefighting equipment specially designed to work in space - where fires become sphere-like and are widely regarded as one of the most frightening hazards for a mission.

With a new spaceship under development, NASA is investing in next-generation fire-fighting gear that is specially designed to work in microgravity.

Last week, ADA Technologies announced it had received a grant from the US agency to continue work on an extinguisher that coats fires in a fine mist using non-toxic water and nitrogen. The key, apparently, is to make the droplets small enough to use compressed gas.

Apparently, those US defence research guys at DARPA seem to be hugely inspired by plans and prototypes for solar-powered UAVs that can store enough juice during sunlight to keep flying through the wee hours.

According to Wired.com, DARPA has been mightily impressed with UAVs that have already demonstrated quite long flights, even though these have been concentrated near the Equator and at midsummer.

The agency now wants to build much more capable, larger versions able to stay airborne for years at a stretch, even in polar regions, using a new miracle material called "Power Skin".

Power Skin would typically be thin monolithic solar panel sheets used as an independent power source and, simultaneously, serve as a lightweight structural material.

Also, check out Eric Raymond's latest bid to fly across Europe in an aircraft powered by the sun's rays to prove that solar air travel is viable.

Raymond's eight-country tour of the continent with his Sunseeker II starts Monday. The new aircraft features several improvements over Sunseeker 1, including a more efficient tail design, a full complement of navigation and soaring instruments and lithium polymer batteries instead of nickel cadmium.

Interestingly, larger wings mean more surface area for the solar cells, and this time around they're embedded in the wings rather than stuck on top so the aircraft can operate continuously on solar power when the weather is good  

 

It has the wingspan of an Airbus A340, the wing load of paragliders and delta aircraft and, in relation to its size, is around eight times lighter than some of the best gliders around.

And you'll be able to check it out for yourself next month on June 26 when the Solar Impulse HB-SIA, which aims to be the first solar aircraft to fly night and day without fuel, is finally unveiled at Dubendorf airport in Switzerland.
The Swiss team behind balloonist Bertrand Piccard's plan to fly around the world hopes the €70 million solar-powered aircraft will ultimately circumnavigate the globe in 2012, with five stopovers en route.
The Solar Impulse HB-SIA, the first prototype of a Solar aircraft has a wingspan of 12m, wing area of 200m2, and weighs 1500kg. It will fly during the day propelled only by solar energy and will glide at night using energy stored during the day. The pilot will also wear a symbiotic garment, which allows him to sleep but wakes him up to make any necessary flight adjustments.

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