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Breuer, J.C.M. (author), Luchsinger, Rolf (author), Schmehl, R. (author)Inflatable wings are of interest for applications where low weight, compact transport volume, and easy set-up are important. Examples are unmanned aerial vehicles with inflatable wings, paragliders and softkites for sport or airborne wind-energy applications. In this paper, a new method of designing and fabricating conformable inflatable wings...journal article 2023
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Chen, Sian Ying (author), van de Waerdt, W.A. (author), Castro, Saullo G.P. (author)The Flying-V aircraft concept promises better fuel-burn performance over conventional tube-and-wing configurations, integrating the passenger cabin and cargo volume into the lifting surface. However, the wing-fuselage and cockpit windows of the Flying-V are exposed to the flight direction, posing a new challenge to the design and...journal article 2023
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Eijkelhof, D. (author), Buendía Vela, Gabriel (author), Schmehl, R. (author)High aerodynamic efficiency is a key design driver for airborne wind energy systems as it strongly affects the achievable energy output. Conventional fixed-wing systems generally use aerofoils with a high thickness-to-chord ratio to achieve high efficiency and wing loading. The box wing concept suits thinner aerofoils as the load distribution...journal article 2023
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Sequeira, Aaron (author)Laminar-to-turbulent boundary layer transition on the wings and stabilizers of aircraft leads to a large increase in the skin-friction drag they experience during flight. This has motivated prolific research into understanding and delaying the transition process, in an effort to improve the economic and ecological impact of air travel. The swept...master thesis 2022
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Barbera, Matteo (author)Flying-wings show great potential for a vast number of applications, in both commercial and military sectors, thanks to their long range and fast forward flight, but suffer due to their lack of vertical take-off and landing capabilities. This paper presents a proof of concept for a novel landing method for a conventional flying wing that does...master thesis 2022
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Wang, X. (author)Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been emerging as a promising but challenging platform for studying autonomous and cooperative control. This Ph.D. thesis focuses on fixed-wing UAVs which, with their more efficient aerodynamics, can ensure longer flight durations and more autonomy than multi-rotorUAVs. However, in the current state of the art...doctoral thesis 2022
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Wang, Chenyao (author)Flapping wing micro aerial vehicles (FWMAVs) are known for their flight agility and maneuverability. However, their in-gust flight performance and stability is still inferior to their biological counterparts. To this end, a simplified in-gust dynamic model, which could capture the main gust effects on FWMAVs, has been identified with real in...master thesis 2022
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de Wagter, C. (author)Highly automated Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or "flying robots" are rapidly becoming an important asset to society. The last decade has seen the advent of an impressive number of new UAV types and applications. For many applications, the UAVs need to be safe, highly automated, and versatile. Safety is a prerequisite to allowing their use in...doctoral thesis 2022
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Völker, Willem (author)Recent research on the Flying V - a flying-wing long-range passenger aircraft - shows that its airframe design is 25% more aerodynamically efficient than a conventional tube-and-wing airframe. The Flying V is therefore a promising contribution towards reduction in climate impact of long-haul flights. However, some design aspects of the Flying V...master thesis 2022
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Buendía Vela, Gabriel (author)Airborne wind energy systems convert the kinetic energy of wind into usable power. In general terms, this power is proportional to the ratio CL<sup>3</sup>/CD<sup>2</sup> of aerodynamic coefficients. From a structural perspective, the thickness-to-chord ratio of conventional AWE wings needs to be high to withstand the high aerodynamic loads. The...master thesis 2022
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Nazeer, N. (author)The aerospace industry is an ever-evolving field that has seen many technological advances over the past decades. The desire for aircraft to be not only efficient and reliable but also cheaper and safer has brought about many proposals across the industry. One of these advances is towards morphing aircraft wings to make wings lighter, more...doctoral thesis 2022
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Ramesh, Adithya (author)The Dutch Electric Aviation Centre possesses and uses a Cessna Skymaster 337F as an experimental flying testbed to help gain knowledge to aid the transition towards hybrid/ electric aviation. The interaction between the rear propeller slipstream and the horizontal tail has been likened to the interaction of propeller-wing configurations seen on...master thesis 2022
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Rius Vidales, A.F. (author)The market growth expected for commercial aviation in the coming decades and the increasing social awareness regarding the effects of global warming are driving significant technological developments necessary for emission reduction in future transport aircraft. From the aerodynamics perspective, a significant increase in aircraft efficiency can...doctoral thesis 2022
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Nolet, Stijn (author)This thesis is performed with the aim to investigate whether split flaps can be a feasible solution for increasing the Flying V directional control power. In order to do so, a set of wind tunnel experiments have been concluded with a 4.6% half wing model in the Open-Jet-Facility at the Delft University of Technology. Here, several split flap...master thesis 2022
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Blom, Jelmer (author)Accurate yet computationally efficient modelling of fixed-wing airborne wind energy systems is key in the preliminary design phase. For the simulation framework of large scale fixed-wing airborne wind energy systems an FSI model is developed that can evaluate flight states in the order of seconds and is able to account for viscosity and multi...master thesis 2022
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Varriale, Carmine (author)The objective of the present dissertation is to show how redundant control surfaces can be exploited to shape an aircraft dynamic behavior and obtain desired flight mechanics performance. This is achieved by introducing novel approaches and methods for flight mechanics and control, mainly revolving around original implementations of traditional...doctoral thesis 2022
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Pereira, Andres (author)A novel twist morphing concept is explored, that exploits the buckling instabilities of slender spar webs integrated into a wing structure to control the twisting response to external loads. The main novelty of the concept is in controlling the effective shear stiffness of the post-buckled slender spar webs through external variable constraints...master thesis 2022
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Lopez Pernas, Pedro (author)Aviation is responsible for a large part of the emissions due to transportation, which is why, in recent years, a trend towards implementing sustainability in aviation has emerged. In small aircraft, the concept of Leading-Edge Distributed Propulsion (LEDP) can provide aerodynamic advantages to reduce fuel consumption thanks to the ability to...master thesis 2022
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Piet, Robin (author)This work is aimed at quantifying the expected advantages and disadvantages of fuel systems for box-wing aircraft, with respect to fuel systems for conventional aircraft. For this, the Multi Model Generator has been extended with an aircraft type-agnostic fuel system module capable of generating preliminary fuel system geometries, assessing the...master thesis 2022
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de Vries, R. (author)Recent developments in the field of hybrid-electric propulsion (HEP) have opened the door to a wide range of novel aircraft configurations with improved energy efficiency. These electrically-driven powertrains enable “distributed propulsion” configurations, in which the aerodynamic interaction between the propulsive devices and the airframe is...doctoral thesis 2022