Max Mulder – Aeronautics and Astronautics

Автор: Max Mulder
Название книги: Aeronautics and Astronautics
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Авиация и космонавтика
Страницы: 621
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

In the next decades, aerospace will be facing significant challenges. Important themes
are the reduction of environmental impact and the increase in efficiency of aerospace
operations. The most important and daunting challenge, however, is to design
aircrafts and spacecrafts that, ultimately, do not depend on fossil fuels. The
dependency of aerospace operations on fossil fuels, which is currently almost 99%,
needs to be dramatically reduced. The availability of fossil fuels will be significantly
decreased by 2035, increasing their cost. Given the fact that aerospace innovations
typically take 20 to 30 years to move from a laboratory setting to a real-life, safe
implementation, we have to hurry in developing radically novel aircrafts and
spacecrafts, and the enabling technology.
This book captures many of the ongoing investigations to develop more sustainable
and environmentally-friendly aerospace vehicles. It contains twenty-three chapters
organized in four main sections: aerodynamics, flight performance and propulsion,
materials and structures, and avionics and operations. Throughout these sections, the
research presented is often geared towards radical innovations that may well be the
basis for the new era of aerospace operations.
The section on aerodynamics covers subjects ranging from the visualization of
complex flow using particle image velocimetry techniques, to the reduction of
aerodynamic drag through plasma flow actuation techniques. In the propulsion and
performance section, the chapters range from helicopter performance improvements
through design, the improvement of gas turbine techniques and exhaust
measurements, to radically new forms of propulsion. The section on structures and
materials, novel metallic alloys with increased performance regarding creep and
fracture, and the development of better models for calculating the impact of crashes.
Many of these innovations are mandatory to design the next generation of aerospace
vehicles that allow for a sustainable air transportation.
In the near future, changes in how to operate aerospace vehicles more effectively and
efficiently may be implemented. Novel air traffic management concepts, aircraft
routing schemes and methods, new avionics sensors and aeronautical data networks
facilitating a system-wide information management are on the drawing table and
likely to be implemented in the next decade, even before the ‘new’ aerospace vehicles
become real.
The book clearly illustrates that the next generation aerospace vehicles and their
operation require a multi-disciplinary approach, ranging from pure aerodynamics to
operations research. After one hundred years of developments and the maturation of
the aerospace domain from a pioneering activity into an established, indispensable
field of study which enables our daily life activities, we now face an incredible
challenge indeed.
I hope you like the book. I would like to thank all authors for their efforts and
assistance in completing the book. Special thanks to the InTech team for their help,
great editing job, and for making this book possible in the first place.
Max Mulder