Electric Aircraft and the Environment: A Literature Review

Historically, the integration of social need, environmental impact, and technological advancement has been a challenging balancing act for growing cities and metropoles. If the balance between social need and environmental sustainability is reached, the increasing advancements and improvements made to electric aircrafts have the potential to steer society towards a new mode of sustainable air. One reason why electric aircraft technology has not grown as fast as other technologies is because there lacked a need for fast advancements. With that said, electric aircraft technologies are improving today due to the demand in heavily populated cities to relieve traffic [5]. Some issues growing cities face are inadequate housing, inefficient infrastructure, and high traffic congestion. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), traffic congestion within the Bay Area has increased 9% in the past two years [5]. The gridlock in the Bay Area increased as approximately 13,000 cars cross the Bay Bridge daily. A report produced by Arup Corporation reports that the Bay Area is second only to Los Angeles in the intensity of traffic congestion [1]. A study by UCLA determined that the economic boom in the Bay Area in the previous decade had driven the influx of inhabitants to the area [5]. These are two examples of metropolitan cities that are impacted by traffic congestion. To mitigate the negative consequences associated with high traffic congestion, it is beneficial to explore redesigning the infrastructure of metropolitan cities in tandem with residual effects of the economic boom. [5]. This literature review analyzes electric aircraft as a viable solution to high congestion and explores the possible effects of it on the environment

Investigation into the Effects of Blade Tip Twist on Noise Reduction for a NACA 0012 Rotor Blade

The advancement of the urban air mobility concept is heavily dependent on the public acceptance of the aircraft vehicles used for air taxis. The importance of the perception of noise by humans is crucial to the passing of legislation and proposals working to implement the new transport system. The investigation into how the noise perception can be reduced is vital to the success of the personal air travel industry. The air taxi design has been geared towards the rotorcraft models. Therefore, the investigation into the rotor blade designs is necessary because, similar to helicopters, the main component in noise generation is the rotors and its blades. The blade-vortex interaction creates noise which humans perceive as the most annoying and disruptive type of noise produced by rotorcraft. The blade-vortex interaction noise is due to the interaction between the advancing blade and the vortexes generated by the tips of the previous rotor blade. This study looks into the effect of tip twist on rotor blades. Understanding how twist in a blade will affect thrust production and noise production will aid in the progress of developing the acceptance of the urban air mobility movement. This investigation is carried out through the use of high-fidelity rotorcraft modeling software developed by Continuum Dynamics Incorporated called the Comprehensive Hierarchical Aeromechanics Rotorcraft Model (CHARM) coupled with the aeroacoustic processing package PSU-WOPWOP to produce sound data files at the wake of the rotor blades. The noise reducing parameter under investigation is the tip twist of the rotor blades. Particularly, interest is on how this change affects the frequency of sound pressure levels. The reduction of this type of noise will aid in determining the design of efficient and safe air taxis that will utilize a system of smaller porting stations as drop off zones, similar, only in concept, to those ride-sharing services