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Ultrafine particles, in particular solid sub-100 nm particles pose high risks to human health due to their high lung deposition efficiency, translocation to all organs including the brain and their harmful chemical composition; due to dense traffic, the population in urban environments is exposed to high concentrations of those toxic air contaminants, despite these facts, they are still widely neglected. Therefore, the EU-Commission set up a program for clean and competitive solutions for different problem areas which are regarded to be hotspots of such particles. HORIZON AeroSolfd is an EU project, co-funded by Switzerland that will deliver affordable, adaptable, and sustainable retrofit solutions to reduce exhaust tailpipe emissions from petrol engines, brake emissions and pollution in semi-closed environments.

Battery electric vehicle (BEV) adoption and complex powertrains pose new challenges to automotive industries, requiring comprehensive testing and validation strategies for reliability and safety. Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) based real-time simulation is important, with cooperative simulation (co-simulation) being an effective way to verify system functionality across domains. Fault injection testing (FIT) is crucial for standards like ISO 26262. This study proposes a HIL-based real-time co-simulation environment that enables fault injection tests in BEVs to allow evaluation of their effects on the safety of the vehicle. A Typhoon HIL system is used in combination with the IPG CarMaker environment. A four-wheel drive BEV model is built, considering high-fidelity electrical models of the powertrain components (inverter, electric machine, traction battery) and the battery management system (BMS).

To grow the application space of polymer additive manufacturing (AM), the industry must provide an offering with improved mechanical properties. Several entities are working towards introducing continuous fibers embedded into either a thermoplastic or thermoset resin system. This approach can enable significant improvement in mechanical properties and could be what is needed to open new and exciting applications within the aerospace industry. Introduction of Continuous Fiber Reinforced Polymer: A New Additive Manufacturing Path for Aerospace examines a couple of unsettled issues that are beginning to come to light regarding these materials and focuses on the ability to design and provide robust structural analysis for continuous fiber reinforced polymer AM—unsung aspects that can make or break this new technology as it finds its way into the aerospace market.

While being the first to fly, the Wright Brothers were also the first and last complete “one stop shop” of aviation: the only case in human flight in which the same individuals personally carried out the research, development, testing, manufacturing, operation, maintenance, air control, flight simulation, training, setup, operation, and more. Since then, these facets gradually fragmented and drifted away from the aircraft. This report discusses the phenomenon of aircraft operation’s “fading humans,” including the development of flight instruments to support it, its growing automation, the emerging artificial intelligence paradigm, and the lurking cyber threats that all over the place. Controlling Aircraft – From Humans to Autonomous Systems: The Fading Humans examines the “fading” process itself, including its safety aspects, current mitigation efforts, ongoing research, and the unsettled topics that still remain. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

The knowledge explosion in all areas is both an opportunity and a risk. In order to shape the effects as positively as possible and create sustainable added value, the amount of information must be processed in a targeted manner and important content must be separated from ignorable content. In the automotive industry and especially in the development of new components, it is possible to look back on many past projects and thus knowledge. However, the decisive factor is whether this information is available in a suitably processed form or the knowledge is even held by just a single expert. A new and intelligent method is therefore required to analyze existing data appropriately and at the same time prepare it ideally for further applications, such as use within forecast models based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). To achieve this, several steps need to be taken. Firstly, it is possible to perform a suitable segmentation of the component.

Electric Vehicles are subject to effects that lead to more or less rapid degradation of functions. This can cause hazards for the drivers and uninvolved road participants. For this reason, the must be detected and mitigated, to maintain the vehicle function even in critical situations until a safe operating mode can be established. This publication presents an intelligent digital twin, located in the edge and connected with an electric vehicle via 5G. That can improve the operation of electrified vehicles by enabling the online detection of abnormal situations in the electrified powertrain and vehicle dynamics. Its core component is the fault detection system, which is implemented based on a 1-Nearest Neighbor algorithm. It is initially trained on synthetic data, generated in CarMaker for real-world powertrain issues such as demagnetization and open-/short-switch failures, using detailed mathematical models.

If an Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) encounters icing conditions during flight, those conditions might result in degraded aerodynamic performance of the overall UAS. If the UAS is not reacting appropriately, safety critical situations can quickly arise. Thereby, the rotors, respectively the propellers of the UAS are especially susceptible due to the increased airflow through their domain and the corresponding higher impingement rate of supercooled water droplets. In many cases, the UAS cannot be properly operated if the rotors are not fully functional, as they are a vital component. The FFG/BMK funded research and development project “All-weather Drone” is investigating the icing phenomenon on UAS rotors for a 25 kg maximum take-off weight (MTOW) multirotor UAS and evaluating the feasibility of possible technical ice detection and anti-/de-icing solutions.

Icing wind tunnel testing was performed as part of the Republic of Korea certification of the Light Civil Helicopter (LCH) for inadvertent flight in icing conditions. The test was aimed at the compliance demonstration of the engine and air intake with dry-media Inlet Barrier Filter (IBF) and was performed with an Arriel 2C2 engine in turbojet configuration. Testing took place at the sea level ambient pressure Large Climatic Wind Tunnel (CWT) at Rail Tec Arsenal (RTA) in Vienna, Austria, by an integrated test team comprising engineers from the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR), Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), and Safran Helicopter Engines. The test matrix covered the AC29-2C Appendix C 10,000 ft icing envelope, as well as simulated ground icing conditions, considering both a clean and artificially contaminated IBF. Beyond the aforementioned certification conditions, exploratory testing was performed in conditions with Supercooled Large Droplets (SLD) and rain.

In-flight atmospheric icing is a severe hazard for propeller-driven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can lead to issues ranging from reduced flight performance to unacceptable loss of lift and control. To address this challenge, a physics-based first principles model of an electric UAV propulsion system is developed and identified in varying icing conditions. Specifically, a brushless direct current motor (BLDC) based propeller system, typical for UAVs with a wing span of 1-3 meters, is tested in an icing wind tunnel with three accreted ice shapes of increasing size. The results are analyzed to identify the dynamics of the electrical, mechanical, and aerodynamic subsystems of the propulsion system. Moreover, the parameters of the identified models are presented, making it possible to analyze their sensitivity to ice accretion on the propeller blades.

As part of the complete solution to deal with atmospheric in-flight icing on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), a path planner is a valuable tool for finding an optimal path for accomplishing UAV missions. When considering icing conditions, the planner manages areas with icing risk. Together with an electro-thermal ice protection system (IPS), the path planner can optimize energy consumption by comparing energy consumed flying through the cloud or around it, as the UAV can now more safely pass through the ice. The UAV’s aerodynamic stability is also considered by meeting lift requirements, producing enough thrust, and having battery capacity left. These are constraints in the planner to ensure that the UAV can complete its mission. Benchmark icing cases are constructed to validate that the path planner performs as intended.

In-flight icing can result in severe aerodynamic performance penalties for unmanned aerial vehicles. It is therefore important to understand to which extent ice will build up on fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles wings and empennages, namely rudder and elevator, and how this ice will impact the aerodynamic performance and limits the flight envelope. This work investigates numerically icing effects on wing and empennage over a wide range of icing parameters. This is conducted using the icing CFD code FENSAP-ICE on the Maritime Robotics PX-31 Falk UAV. Therefore, the 2D profiles of these airfoils, which are RG-15 for the wing and SD8020 for rudder and elevator, are investigated. The investigated angles of attack are between –5° and 14° in 0.5° increments. Furthermore, the icing conditions are chosen according to the FAA CS 25 Appendix C for continuous maximum and intermittent maximum icing.

Wind tunnel tests were performed on an 8.9-percent scale semispan wing in the Wichita State University 7x10-foot wind tunnel with simulated ice accretion shapes. Simulated ice shapes from large-droplet clouds, simple-geometry ice horn shapes, and simple-geometry spanwise ridge shapes typical of runback icing were tested. Three Reynolds number and Mach number combinations were tested over a range of angles of attack. Aerodynamic forces and moments were acquired from the tunnel balance and surface pressures and oil flow visualizations were acquired. This research supplements the Swept Wing Icing Program recently concluded by NASA, FAA, ONERA, and their partners by testing new ice shapes on the same wind tunnel model. Additional surface roughness was added to simulate large-droplet ice accretion aft of the highly three-dimensional primary ice shape, and it had little effect on the wing aerodynamic performance.

In-flight atmospheric icing is a significant threat to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in adverse weather. The propeller of the UAV is especially sensitive to icing conditions, as it accumulates ice at a faster rate than the wings of the UAVs. Ice protection systems can be developed to counteract the danger of icing on the propeller of UAVs. In this study, the influence of different meteorological conditions on a propeller of a UAV is analyzed for a UAV with a wingspan of a few meters. The ice accretion and the performance degradation and the required anti-icing heat fluxes have been calculated using numerical methods with ANSYS FENSAP-ICE. This analysis has been used to evaluate the critical conditions for the operation of a UAV in icing conditions and the design of a thermal IPS system for a propeller. The highest ice mass has been found at a temperature of −10 °C and an MVD of 20 μm in intermittent maximum icing conditions.

Icing is a severe hazard to aircraft and in particular to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). One important activity to understand icing risks is the prediction of ice shapes with simulation tools. Nowadays, several icing computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models exist. Most of these methods have been originally developed for manned aircraft purposes at relatively high Reynolds numbers. In contrast, typical UAV applications experience Reynolds numbers an order of magnitude lower, due to the smaller airframe size and lower airspeeds. This work proposes a set of experimental ice shapes that can serve as validation data for ice prediction methods at low Reynolds numbers. Three ice shapes have been collected at different temperatures during an experimental icing wind tunnel campaign. The obtained ice shapes represent wet (glaze ice, −2 °C), mixed (−4 °C), and dry (rime ice, −10 °C) ice growth regimes. The Reynolds number is between Re=5.6…6.0×105, depending on the temperature.

This paper presents experimental ice accretion measurements alongside numerical simulations, using the National Research Council Canada’s morphogenetic approach, on a pitot probe geometry at varying icing conditions. In previous publications, the morphogenetic approach for the numerical simulation of ice accretion has shown promise for pitot probe applications, potentially reducing the number of wind tunnel entries, and therefore cost, of the development cycle. An experimental campaign has been completed, providing ice shapes on a representative pitot probe model. Comparison of the experimental and numerical ice shapes indicate that the morphogenetic model is able to generate the complex ice shapes seen experimentally for real-world icing conditions on a fully 3D geometry, closely matching both ice features and total ice thicknesses.

In-flight icing significantly influences the design of large passenger aircraft. Relevant aspects include sizing of the main aerodynamic surfaces, provision of anti-icing systems, and setting of operational restrictions. Empennages of large passenger aircraft are particularly affected due to the small leading edge radius, and the requirement to generate considerable lift for round out and flare, following an extended period of descent often in icing conditions. This paper describes a CFD-based investigation of the effects of sweep on the aerodynamic performance of a novel forward-swept horizontal stabilizer concept in icing conditions. The concept features an unconventional forward sweep, combined with a high lift leading edge extension (LEX) located within a fuselage induced droplet shadow zone, providing passive protection from icing.

This paper presents impingement analysis on a nacelle inlet, multibody airfoil, and swept tail under Supercooled Large Droplet (SLD) conditions in icing tunnels. Impingement and collection efficiency calculations are crucial for ice shape and protection analyses. The aerospace icing community selected three cases for simulation, focusing on SLD conditions, which require specific mathematical models for accurate representation. The present authors used a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool to evaluate pressure coefficients and collection efficiency, comparing them with experimental data. CFD simulations incorporated fully turbulent flow using various turbulence models and Eulerian droplet transport, considering experimental droplet distribution. The results showed acceptable deviations despite SLD simulation challenges and experimental data problems.

This paper focuses on the design of the thermoelectric ice protection system (IPS) for the engine air intake of the Next Generation Civil Tiltrotor (NGCTR), a demonstrator under development in Leonardo Helicopters. A specific IPS design strategy for the novel intake configuration is proposed. The main constraint which driven the design strategy is a maximum power of 10.6 kW available for the full intake IPS system. The IPS was designed for safe aircraft operations within the Appendix-C icing envelope. The numerical approach adopted to perform the design and the resulting IPS concept are presented. Calculations of the required IPS heat fluxes revealed that maintaining running wet conditions on the entire intake surface is not feasible due to the limitation to the maximum IPS power demand. Therefore, a de-icing IPS design strategy is proposed. The anti-icing mode is adopted only on the lip region to avoid formation of ice caps whereas de-icing zones are defined within the intake duct.

The Ice Crystal Environment Modular Axial Compressor Rig (ICE-MACR) was developed by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) with support from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in response to the need to understand ice crystal icing of aircraft engines at high altitudes. Icing wind tunnel tests on static hardware lack some of the real physics of turbofan compressor such as centrifuging and fracturing of particles, and melting of particles due to compression heating, heat transfer through a casing wall, as well as annular geometry effects. Since the commissioning of ICE-MACR in 2019 new insights have been gained on the physics behind ice crystal icing of turbofan engines. Additionally, the results of various test campaigns have been used to validate engine ice accretion numerical codes. This paper summarizes the key insights into ICI of turbofans gained from the ICE-MACR to date.

The process for certifying an existing aircraft for flight into known icing is well defined and must follow specific guidelines and meet specific milestones. As UAVs are still a relatively recent development, guidelines for icing flight certification of a UAV have not yet been developed by the FAA, and no UAVs have yet been certified for FIKI under the FAA. As part of a research program, engineers at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, OH USA worked with partners to integrate its ice protection system, HeatCoatTM, onto an existing UAV platform as a retrofit with the ultimate goal of flying in icing conditions. This research program was funded by the US Government with intent to integrate HeatCoat on the TigerShark-XP UAV. The integration on the TigerShark was demonstrated to present challenges specific to the nature of this UAV that had to be overcome.