TU Braunschweig has defined one of its core research areas to create safe, efficient and sustainable mobility for the future. In aviation research, we follow an interdisciplinary research concept, jointly with DLR and Leibniz University Hannover, within the Center of Excellence SE2A. The project defines scientific and technological foundations for a sustainable future global air transport system to meet the mobility demands by introducing new aircraft technologies, new energy storage and conversion approaches, and fundamental changes to infrastructure and traffic management.
The Junior Research Group (JRG) “Flow Physics of Laminar Wing and Fuselage” is a part of the core research area “System Platforms”. Based on conceptual design studies, flow laminarization of the wing, fuselage and empennage by Boundary Layer (BL) suction offers large gains in overall aircraft efficiency. Leveraging these gains for future aircraft calls for new knowledge on flow-control design of 3D wings and fuselages. More information about the research group leader can be found below:
Research Question: How much laminar flow can be obtained on the wings and fuselage? And how to translate the BL requirements for laminarization into suction-based system design?
Strategy: A novel wing design for optimal pressure distribution will be developed. First, an optimal airfoil with suction BL will be designed for un-swept wings of a short-range aircraft. The research will be extended to the design of higher-speed airfoils with suction, for medium-range aircraft with transonic swept wings. A combined numerical, experimental work will be performed.