SBIR Phase I: Novel Circulation Control for Electric Aircraft

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be the accelerated adoption of electric flight. Currently, the limited range and payloads of small electric aircraft make them economically unviable on most routes. Increased aerodynamic efficiency is required for longer range. The circulation control technology being developed generates extremely high lift only when needed (takeoff and landing), but unlike other propulsion-based approaches aimed at the same effect, it is low cost and allows for a smaller and more efficient wing without any mass or performance drawbacks for the cruise portion of flight where range is needed. More rapid adoption of electric aircraft will enhance US leadership in this nascent field, facilitate the use of the country’s 5000 small, regional airports for transformative, quiet, accessible, electric air mobility, and become a new area of economic growth in underserved parts of the country. Moreover, decarbonization is an urgent challenge in aviation, with the industry being among the least able to electrify. Radical new aerodynamic approaches and configurations must be adopted, such as those which the proposed technology will enable, to reach a true net zero future for air transportation. This project involves research and development of novel aerodynamic circulation control applied to the wings of electric planes to generate extremely high lift. The technology introduces a high-energy narrow jet of air over control surfaces like flaps, allowing for much higher deflections and potentially tripling the lift of a wing at takeoff and landing. Previously deemed too risky and expensive for commercial application by industry based on earlier concepts fueled by combustion engines and complex plumbing, this innovation simplifies the physical implementation in a way that is only now possible with the latest electric aircraft architectures. This project develops a combination of high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations and physical aerodynamic testing to uncover the fundamental turbulent flow characteristics that must be produced to ensure that maximum wing lift coefficients of 4 to 5 can be achieved reliably, particularly in off-design conditions. Detailed performance modeling will establish benchmarks of existing vs. modified performance to include circulation control and then apply this data to an entirely new type of maximum efficiency wing that can become a new industry standard. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.