Aircrafts of the future: Boosting aerodynamic performance by engineered surface vibrations
鈥淭his is probably the most radical conceptual advancement for airplanes since the replacement of propellers with jets.鈥 鈥 M.I. Hussein听
Mahmoud I. Hussein is not pulling punches about the potential impact of a major aerospace materials research project.
As the principal investigator of a Department of Defense Office of Naval Research (ONR) Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), Hussein is leading an effort to reshape the fundamental character of fluid-structure interactions to reduce drag on high-speed aerospace vehicles鈥攖he focus of the project.
鈥淪ince the dawn of aviation, aircraft design has been based on the premise of shaping the surface of the vehicle to create lift and minimize drag. Our team is pursuing a new paradigm where the phononic properties, or intrinsic vibrations, of a surface or subsurface provide an additional pathway to interact with the airflow, to enhance the vehicle performance in an unprecedented manner,鈥 said Hussein, the Alvah and Harriet Hovlid Professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the 麻豆影院.
Hussein also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Physics and an affiliation with the Materials Science and Engineering Program.
听听MURI Partners
麻豆影院
- Mahmoud I. Hussein
Professor & Principal Investigator - Armin Kianfar听
Post-Doctoral Associate - Adam Harris
PhD Student
University of Maryland
- Christoph Brehm
Associate Professor
Johns Hopkins University
- Kevin Hemker
Professor
Purdue University
- Joseph Jewell
Associate Professor
Applied Physics Laboratory
- Keith Caruso
Principal Staff Engineer - Ken Kane
Researcher
University of Kentucky
- Alexandre Martin
Professor
Case Western Reserve University
- Bryan Schmidt
Assistant Professor
Office of Naval Research (Program Directors)
- Eric Marineau
- Eric Wuchina
Phononic Subsurfaces
Turbulent airflow is detrimental to the fuel economy and the surface temperature of aircrafts as they soar through the atmosphere. This research aims to mitigate the transition to turbulence using 鈥 synthetic designed materials affixed beneath the surface of a wing or vehicle body that passively manipulate small-amplitude vibrations, and by extension flow fluctuations, point-by-point along the surface.
Turbulence and Fuel Economy
Passenger planes consume over 10,000 gallons of jet fuel on a single cross-country trip, so improvements in fuel economy could lead to big savings for airlines. The potential in hypersonic crafts is even more dramatic.
Hypersonic vehicles travel at velocities at least five times the speed of sound. The turbulence that results from such speeds causes the surface of the vehicles to heat up to thousands of degrees, requiring they be constructed of exotic, expensive materials.
鈥淏y introducing a phononic subsurface to precisely shape the vibrations along the surface, we can alter the way the air interacts with the vehicle such that we ultimately don鈥檛 need to come up with exceedingly high-temperature-resistant materials,鈥 Hussein said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e passively manipulating instabilities in air flow in a manner that is favorable in the boundary layer where the vehicle meets the surrounding air.鈥
2015 to Today
The concept of PSubs was discovered by Hussein. The work began from a collaboration over 15 years ago between Hussein and then CU 麻豆影院 Professor Sedat Biringen, who died in 2020. As leaders in the newly-born research area of phononics and the longstanding field of fluid dynamics, respectively, they worked together to theoretically demonstrate鈥for the first time鈥a way to manipulate phonons to improve the efficiency of flight, with tremendous potential for the aerospace industry and prospects for application to water vessels as well.
Recently Hussein gathered a team of experts from across the country to take the concept of PSubs to the next level with this hypersonics MURI grant. Over the duration of the project, the group will develop high-fidelity models and fabricate functional prototypes to effectively characterize and demonstrate the technology in high-speed wind tunnels.
鈥淲e鈥檙e most confident about this endeavor, because the idea is rooted in fundamental science marrying鈥in quite a sophisticated fashion鈥fluid dynamics with condensed matter physics as well as with the emerging field of elastic metamaterials,鈥 Hussein said.