航空機の省エネルギーに関する技術課題と展望(<特集>輸送の省エネ)

概要

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Several subjects for energy saving technologies in aircraft are briefly overviewed. Technical items are basically divided into air frame related and engine related technologies. As airframe related topics, application status of advanced composites to aircraft is surveyed first. In recent commercial aircraft, composites application ratio reaches almost 50% of aircraft weight empty. The highlighted technology in the near future is low cost fabrication of composite structures. Because in Japan's new regional jet aircraft program so called MRJ by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., this low cost composite fabrication is one of the emphasized topics, slightly detailed explanation is given. The second topic in the airframe side is aerodynamics for air drag reduction. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) plays a key role in this technology. Technical trends about engine for energy savings are overviewed next. The first key issue is the bypass-ratio in the fan-jet engines. In the recent engines, this ratio is approaching to 10. The hottest topic is the so-called concept of Geared Turbo-Fan (GTF) developed by Pratt & Whitney Co. Ltd in USA, which is a kind of revolution technology for low fuel consumption. This engine will be adopted to MRJ aircraft. Some basic technical topics for higher energy efficiency are also overviewed.
2008-07-20