Page 68 - European Energy Innovation - summer 2018 publication

68 Summer 2018 European Energy Innovation
CLEAN SKY
Clean Sky has taken off:
The story of the BLADE
project on laminar flow
By Tiit Jürimäe, Interim Executive Director, Clean Sky
1March 2018: the National
Building Museum, Washington,
D.C. The reputable aviation
magazine Aviation Week is
holding its 61st Annual Laureate
Awards ceremony recognising
achievements in Business, Defense,
Space, and Commercial Aviation.
In this final category, the Clean Sky
flagship project BLADE (Breakthrough
Laminar Aircraft Demonstrator in
Europe) has won the much coveted
Technology prize. This globally
recognised award marks the
achievements of excellent European
research to reduce the environmental
footprint of aviation, under the auspices with two differently manufactured
of the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme.
As part of the Clean Sky Programme’s
Smart Fixed Wing Aircraft (SFWA)
efforts, the BLADE project aims to
prove that natural laminar flow can
be reliably and consistently achieved
under normal operational conditions
of aircraft in the air transport system,
thereby reducing wing friction drag by
50% and aircraft CO₂ emissions by up
to 5%.
The BLADE demonstrator aircraft,
a heavily-modified Airbus A340, is
the first test aircraft in the world
to combine a transonic laminar
wing profile with a representative,
innovative structural design and
manufacturing process.
Following a decade of dedicated
research, the BLADE aircraft made
its successful maiden flight on 26
September 2017. The aircraft flew
for 3 hours and 38 minutes between
Tarbes and Toulouse in France. The
flight was a landmark achievement,
and the BLADE project itself is a
great example of pan-European
cooperation in research to reduce
CO2. Under the leadership of Airbus,
some 20 partners in eight European
countries have worked together
to bring together the technologies
needed and integrate all innovative
design, manufacturing and
assembly concepts, as well as flight
measurement systems.
On the outside the aircraft is fitted
outer-wings, allowing the test flights
not only to verify the laminar airflow,
but to compare the two different
manufacturing concepts selected for
the test campaign. Inside the aircraft
cabin, a novel and highly complex
flight-test-instrumentation station
was installed in order to acquire
data from the array of sensors on
the aircraft and measure the airflow
and the aircraft’s performance. The
extensive modifications to the A340-
300 test-bed aircraft took place
during the course of a 16-month
period in Tarbes, with the support of
numerous partners across Europe.
On the wings, there are hundreds of
points to measure the waviness of
the surface to help Airbus’ engineers
ascertain its influence on the airflow
www.europeanenergyinnovation.eu