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Improving The Performance Of An Ead Aircraft By Use Of A Retractable Electrode System, Michael Alexander Fredricks
Improving The Performance Of An Ead Aircraft By Use Of A Retractable Electrode System, Michael Alexander Fredricks
Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses
Electroaerodynamic (EAD) propulsion is a growing area of research for small, low powered aircraft. Recent tests of EAD aircraft have demonstrated low performance in unpowered, gliding flight. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of a retractable electrode system on the flight performance of an EAD aircraft. An analysis of electrode drag contribution on the MIT ionic wind plane’s performance predicts a maximum lift to drag ratio of 22, with the addition of a retractable electrode system, for a similarly sized and modeled EAD aircraft. An experiment is developed using a prototype aircraft, launcher, and retraction system …