Guy Norris Los AngelesGreen ERA
Suite of technology demonstrations through 2015
home in on ambitious performance goals
N
ASA’s Environmentally Respon-
sible Aviation (ERA) project is
marching into its seventh and
fi nal year amid encouraging signs that
the program’s grand fi nale, a series of
key technology demonstrations, will
achieve their goal of simultaneous
cuts in drag, weight, fuel burn, noise
and emissions.
Created in 2009, ERA was tasked
with demonstrating a suite of technol-
ogy that would permit environmental-
ly sustainable growth in commercial
aviation from 2025 onward. Planners
believed this would be possible only if
they set highly ambitious performance
goals for future airliners compared to
turn-of-the-century engine-airframe
technology and current Stage 4 noise
standards. ERA goals include slashing
aircraft level fuel burn by 50%, drag by
8%, weight by 10%, emissions by at least
70% and noise by up to 42 EPNdb.NASA ERA project manager Fay
Collier says “at this stage it appears
all eight integrated technology demon-
strations (ITDs) will meet predefi ned
minimum success criteria, and most
will meet full success criteria. We are
making good progress on technology
maturation that when packaged to-
gether will simultaneously reduce low
nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions, carbon
output, and the noise footprint of future
commercial transport aircraft designs.”
The eight ITDs are focused on
five main objectives ; drag reduction
through active fl ow control (AFC) con-
cepts, weight reduction via advanced
composites, fuel and noise reduction
from advanced engines, emissions re-
ductions from improved combustors,
and fuel consumption and noise reduc-
tion through innovative airframe and
engine integration designs.
Tests of the AFC are set to begin inApril on Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator 757,
which made its initial functional check
fl ight on March 17 (see page 44). Work is
focused on evaluation of the tail-mount-
ed AFC system, which is designed to
ultimately enable the use of smaller,
lower-drag vertical fi ns, as well as “bug-
phobic” leading edge wing treatments
that could enable the broader use of
laminar fl ow. Flight tests are set to be
completed in July and are targeted at
showing potential for a 1.5% reduction
in total cruise drag through the AFC
and at least 3% total cruise drag reduc-
tion through more laminar fl ow.
Two ITDs focused on weight reduc-
tion are also in full swing at NASA
centers in Langley and Armstrong.
Structural tests on a 30-ft.-long,
multi-bay box test article made out of
a composite structural concept called
Pultruded Rod Stitched Ef cient Unit-
ized Structure, or Prseus, are under-AviationWeek.com/awst AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 47A 30-ft.-long multi-bay box Prseus
test article is being evaluated at
NASA Langley following delivery on
the agency’s Super Guppy trans-
port from Boeing’s Long Beach,
California, site in December 2014.NASA