Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Mechanical Engineering

PDF

Faculty Publications

Series

2023

Urban air mobility

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Large Eddy Simulation For Empirical Modeling Of The Wake Of Three Urban Air Mobility Vehicles, Denis-Gabriel Caprace, Andrew Ning Apr 2023

Large Eddy Simulation For Empirical Modeling Of The Wake Of Three Urban Air Mobility Vehicles, Denis-Gabriel Caprace, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

Recent advances in urban air mobility have driven the development of many new VTOL concepts. These vehicles often feature original designs departing from the conventional helicopter configuration. Due to their novelty, the characteristics of the super-vortices forming in the wake of such aircraft are unknown. However, these vortices may endanger any other vehicle evolving in their close proximity, owing to potentially large induced velocities. Therefore, improved knowledge about the wakes of VTOL vehicles is needed to guarantee safe urban air mobility operations. In this work, we study the wake of three VTOL aircraft in cruise by means of large eddy …


Low-Fidelity Design Optimization And Parameter Sensitivity Analysis Of Tilt-Rotor Evtol Electric Propulsion Systems, Tyler Critchfield, Andrew Ning Jan 2023

Low-Fidelity Design Optimization And Parameter Sensitivity Analysis Of Tilt-Rotor Evtol Electric Propulsion Systems, Tyler Critchfield, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

Urban air mobility requires a multidisciplinary approach to tackle the important chal- lenges facing the design of these aircraft. This work uses low-to-mid fidelity tools to model rotor aerodynamics, blade structures, vehicle aerodynamics, and electric propulsion for a tilt-rotor electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. We use gradient-based design optimization and extensive parameter sensitivity analysis to explore the design space and complex tradeoffs of tilt-rotor distributed electric propulsion systems.