NASA’s high-performance computer systems have generated this picture that shows a Transonic Truss Braced Wing (TTBW) plane idea being examined in a digital wind tunnel. The picture highlights how the plane’s wings work together with the encompassing air. Credit score: NASA / Oliver Browne
No, it’s not hypermodern artwork. This picture, generated by NASA’s high-performance computers, shows a Transonic Truss Braced Wing (TTBW) aircraft concept being tested in a virtual wind tunnel, showing how its wings interact with the air around them.
In this case, the dark red area along the front of the wing represents higher-speed airflow as the TTBW’s wings, which are thinner than those of today’s commercial airliners, pierce the air. The tan-colored area shows the relatively smooth wake generated by the aerodynamic wings.
A TTBW aircraft produces less drag due to its longer, thinner wings supported by aerodynamic trusses. In flight, it could consume up to 10% less jet fuel than a standard airliner.
Visualization of the concept Transonic Truss-Braced Wing aircraft’s free-air configuration showing time-averaged surface pressure coefficient contour (red is high, blue is low) and streamlines defined by surface skin friction. The image shows the shock along the span of the wing, including the spanwise variations of the shock location, and the streamlines highlighting the regions of separated flow downstream of the shock. Oliver Browne, NASA/Ames
The Advanced Supercomputing Division of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California created this image as part of an effort by the Transformational Tools and Technologies project to develop computational tools for TTBW research.
In January, NASA selected a TTBW concept from The Boeing Company for its Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project.
NASA and Boeing have joined forces to design a Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) plane, incorporating cutting-edge expertise that would considerably improve the gasoline effectivity of economic plane. The TTBW plane has a singular construction, that includes a excessive side ratio wing and wing and jury struts, leading to intricate move phenomena similar to transonic buffet, separated move, and a turbulent wake. The usual business follow employs Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) evaluation for predicting buffet onset, however correct forecasting could require extra exact scale-resolving CFD simulations to anticipate buffet onset and separated move growth. Due to this fact, NASA’s Superior Air Transport Expertise Challenge has initiated a collaborative, multi-center effort to create new simulation strategies to forecast the TTBW’s efficiency and that of comparable truss-braced wing configurations, significantly for predicting transonic buffet onset.
