Related Resources: Aerospace Design Engineering

Fundamentals of Aerospace Engineering

Engineering and Design Applications

Fundamentals of Aerospace Engineering
An Introductory Course to Aerospace Engineering
Manuel Solar
Assistant Professor,
Universidad Carlos III.
404 Pages

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Preface:

Fundamentals of Aerospace Engineering covers an undergraduate, introductory course to aeronautical engineering and aims at combining theory and practice to provide a comprehensive, thorough introduction to the fascinating, yet complex discipline of aerospace engineering. This book is the ulterior result of three year of teaching a course called Aerospace Engineering in the first year of a degree in aerospace engineering (with a minor in air navigation) at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, in Madrid, Spain. When I started preparing the course, back in 2010, I realized there was not a suitable text-book reference due to two fundamental reasons:

First, the above mentioned degree was in english, a trend that is becoming more and more popular in Spain now, but it was completely new at those days. Therefore, the classical references used in similar courses in Spain (introductory courses in aeronautical and aerospace engineering) were written in Spanish.

Second, as opposed to most parts of the world, e.g., the USA and most of Europe, where traditionally airports, air transportation, and air navigation are included in the branch of civil or transportation engineering, the studies of aeronautical and aerospace engineering in Spain (due to national legislation) include aspects related to airports, air transportation, and air navigation. As a consequence, the classical references written in english and used as classical references in similar courses did not cover part of the contents of the course. Therefore, I started writing my own lecture notes: in english and covering issues related to airports, air transportation, and air navigation. After three preliminary, draft versions used as reference lecture notes throughout the past years, they have evolved into the book I’m presenting herein.

The book is divided into three parts, namely: Introduction, The Aircraft, and Air Transportation, Airports, and Air Navigation.

The first part is divided in two chapters in which the student must achieve to understand the basic elements of atmospheric flight (ISA and planetary references) and the technology that apply to the aerospace sector, in particular with a specific comprehension of the elements of an aircraft. The second part focuses on the aircraft and it is divided in five chapters that introduce the student to aircraft aerodynamics (fluid mechanics, airfoils, wings, high-lift devices), aircraft materials and structures, aircraft propulsion, aircraft instruments and systems, and atmospheric flight mechanics (performances and stability and control). The third part is devoted to understand the global air transport system (covering both regulatory and economical frameworks), the airports, and the global air navigation system (its history, current status, and future development). The theoretical contents are illustrated with figures and complemented with some problems/exercises. The problems deal, fundamentally, with aerodynamics and flight mechanics, and were proposed in different exams.

TOC

I Introduction 1
1 The Scope 3
1.1 Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Aerospace activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Aviation research agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3.1 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3.2 Clean Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.3 SESAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 Generalities 19
2.1 Classification of aerospace vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.1 Fixed wing aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.2 Rotorcraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1.3 Missiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.4 Space vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2 Parts of the aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2.1 Fuselage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2.2 Wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.3 Empennage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2.4 Main control surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2.5 Propulsion plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3 Standard atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.1 Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.2 Fluid-static equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.3.3 ISA equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.3.4 Warm and cold atmospheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3.5 Barometric altitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4 System references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.5 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

II The aircraft 45
3 Aerodynamics 47
3.1 Fundamentals of fluid mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.1.1 Generalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.1.2 Continuity equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1.3 Quantity of movement equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.1.4 Viscosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.1.5 Speed of sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.2 Airfoils shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.2.1 Airfoil nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.2.2 Generation of aerodynamic forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.2.3 Aerodynamic dimensionless coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.2.4 Compressibility and drag-divergence Mach number . . . . . . . . 66
3.3 Wing aerodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.3.1 Geometry and nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.3.2 Flow over a finite wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.3.3 Lift and induced drag in wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.3.4 Characteristic curves in wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.3.5 Aerodynamics of wings in compressible and supersonic regimes . 73
3.4 High-lift devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.4.1 Necessity of high-lift devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.4.2 Types of high-lift devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.4.3 Increase in CLmax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.5 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

4 Aircraft structures 103
4.1 Generalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.2 Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.2.1 Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.2.2 Materials in aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.3 Loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.3.1 Fuselage loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.3.2 Wing and tail loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.3.3 Landing gear loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.3.4 Other loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.4 Structural components of an aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.4.1 Structural elements and functions of the fuselage . . . . . . . . . 115
4.4.2 Structural elements and functions of the wing . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4.3 Tail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.4.4 Landing gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

5 Aircraft instruments and systems 121
5.1 Aircraft instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.1.1 Sources of data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.1.2 Instruments requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.1.3 Instruments to be installed in an aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.1.4 Instruments layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.1.5 Aircrafts’ cockpits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
5.2 Aircraft systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.2.1 Electrical system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.2.2 Fuel system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.2.3 Hydraulic system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
5.2.4 Flight control systems: Fly-By-Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
5.2.5 Air conditioning & pressurisation system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
5.2.6 Other systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

6 Aircraft propulsion 147
6.1 The propeller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
6.1.1 Propeller propulsion equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
6.2 The jet engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
6.2.1 Some aspects about thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.2.2 Inlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6.2.3 Compressor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
6.2.4 Combustion chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.2.5 Turbine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
6.2.6 Nozzles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.3 Types of jet engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.3.1 Turbojets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.3.2 Turbofans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
6.3.3 Turboprops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
6.3.4 After-burning turbojet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

7 Mechanics of flight 169
7.1 Performances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
7.1.1 Reference frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
7.1.2 Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
7.1.3 Aircraft equations of motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
7.1.4 Performances in a steady linear flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.1.5 Performances in steady ascent and descent flight . . . . . . . . . 175
7.1.6 Performances in gliding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.1.7 Performances in turn maneuvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
7.1.8 Performances in the runway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
7.1.9 Range and endurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
7.1.10 Payload-range diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
7.2 Stability and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
7.2.1 Fundamentals of stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
7.2.2 Fundamentals of control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
7.2.3 Longitudinal balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
7.2.4 Longitudinal stability and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.2.5 Lateral-directional stability and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
7.3 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

III Air Transportation, Airports, and Air Navigation 231
8 Air transportation 233
8.1 Regulatory framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
8.1.1 ICAO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
8.1.2 IATA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
8.2 The market of aircraft for commercial air transportation . . . . . . . . . . 240
8.2.1 Manufacturers in the current market of aircraft . . . . . . . . . . 241
8.2.2 Types of aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
8.2.3 Future market of aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
8.3 Airlines’ cost strucutre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
8.3.1 Operational costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
8.4 Environmental impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
8.4.1 Sources of environmental impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
8.4.2 Aircraft operations’ environmental fingerprint. . . . . . . . . . . . 257
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

9 Airports 269
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
9.1.1 Airport designation and naming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
9.1.2 The demand of air transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
9.1.3 The master plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
9.2 Airport configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
9.2.1 Airport description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
9.2.2 The runway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
9.2.3 The terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
9.2.4 Airport services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
9.3 Airport operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
9.3.1 Air Traffic Management (ATM) services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
9.3.2 Airport navigational aids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
9.3.3 Safety management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
9.3.4 Environmental concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

10 Air navigation 299
10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
10.1.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
10.1.2 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
10.2 Technical and operative framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
10.2.1 Communications, Navigation & Surveillance (CNS) . . . . . . . . 306
10.2.2 Air Traffic Management (ATM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
10.3 Airspace Management (ASM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
10.3.1 ATS routes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
10.3.2 Airspace organization in regions and control centers . . . . . . . 314
10.3.3 Restrictions in the airspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
10.3.4 Classification of the airspace according to ICAO . . . . . . . . . 317
10.3.5 Navigation charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
10.3.6 Flight plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
10.4 Technical support: CNS system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
10.4.1 Communication systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
10.4.2 Navigation systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
10.4.3 Surveillance systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
10.5 SESAR concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
10.5.1 Single European Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
10.5.2 SESAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

IV Appendixes 351
A 6-DOF Equations of Motion 353
A.1 Reference frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
A.2 Orientation between reference frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
A.2.1 Wind axes-Local horizon orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
A.2.2 Body axed-Wind axes orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
A.3 General equations of motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
A.3.1 Dynamic relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
A.3.2 Forces acting on an aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
A.4 Point mass model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
A.4.1 Dynamic relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
A.4.2 Mass relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
A.4.3 Kinematic relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
A.4.4 Angular kinematic relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
A.4.5 General differential equations system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367