Smaaart ERA structural concept and trailing edge evaluation 1.0 introduction/background: NASA created the environmentally responsible aviation (ERA) project to explore and document the feasibility,…

Smaaart ERA structural concept and trailing edge evaluation 1.0 introduction/background: NASA created the environmentally responsible aviation (ERA) project to explore and document the feasibility, benefits, and technical risk of vehicle concepts and enabling technologies that will reduce the impact of aviation on the environment. Today's current generation of aircraft has benefitted from NASA investments in aeronautical research that have improved fuel efficiencies, lowered noise levels, and reduced harmful emissions. Although substantial progress has been made, much more needs to be done. The nation's air transportation system will expand by a factor of two or three within the next two decades, potentially increasing aviation's impact on climate change. The ERA project works to reduce the environmental harm that could result from such an expansion. The ERA project is focusing on environmental issues associated with aircraft, including fuel burn, emissions, and noise. The project is exploring and documenting the feasibility, benefits, and technical risk of vehicle concepts and enabling technologies identified to have the potential to mitigate the impact of aviation on the environment. This technology development directly supports the national aeronautics research and development policy to develop appropriate environmental protection measures to ensure continued growth in air transportation. The primary structural concept being developed under the ERA project in the airframe technology element is the pultruded rod stitched efficient unitized structure (prseus) design. The prseus design approach is part of the ERA effort to address fuel burn (C02 emissions) by reducing the weight of advanced structures. Reducing fuel burn reduces the need to use resources and reduces pollution. Prseus represents a new concept in composite design theory and manufacturing methods. IT is a conscious progression away from conventional laminated and bonded assemblies toward larger one-piece panel designs with seamless transitions and damage-arrest interfaces such as stitch rows and tear straps. IT focuses on a new structural concept that integrates skin, stringers, and frame elements into a single large panel in which all elements are simultaneously cured (or CO-cured) in one high-temperature cure cycle. The resulting structure is a novel solution for addressing the demanding fuselage loading requirements inherent in a pressurized shaped vehicle like the hybrid wing body (HWB) concept. The prseus concept builds upon, extends, and tailors these structural technologies in order to meet the demanding challenges associated with vehicles with shapes and load paths different from today s traditional wing and circular fuselage structures. 2.0 scope & objective(s): 2.1 the scope of this task order is to conduct analytical evaluations based on a stitched unitized composite structural concept and advanced aerodynamics to commercial transport aircraft structures to determine weight reductions and aerodynamic performance improvements compared to state-of-the-art aircraft with wings attached to a barrel fuselage section. Advances beyond traditional tube-with-wings aircraft under consideration include (1) the concept change to go to a HWB design, (2) to use high aspect ratio composite wings attached to a barrel fuselage, and (3) to add adaptive compliant elements such as a flexible composite trailing edge to either the wing of a traditional shaped aircraft or to the wing of a HWB aircraft. All of these concepts improve the aerodynamic performance. 2.2 the objectives of this task order are as follows: 1. Describe the benefits of the prseus concept, and other stitched resin infused concepts, to a conventional twin-aisle tube-and-wing transport vehicle. 2. Update the performance benefits of the prseus concept to a HWB vehicle based on the test results obtained since the original study was performed under CO