The Pipistrel Taurus G4 plane won NASA Geen Flight Challenge 2011, sponsored by Google. Is currently the largest, heaviest and the fastest electropowered aircraft, and the only electropowered fourseater in the world. The article presents the plane path from idea, through planning to implementation, testing and participation in the contest. Published are the facts from background, technical diagrams and the ideology behind the concept of the plane. The authors also disclosed to competitive tactics and knowledge gained in testing procedures. Project design and manufacture of aircraft Taurus G4 lasted a mere 5 months, and it has been necessary to implement innovative approaches such as. rapid prototyping and concurrent development in several areas simultaneously. The theoretical background is multidisciplinary and include all of the aeronautical, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering skills, but the statistics in the analysis and processing data from tests. The capacity of aircraft Taurus G4 correspond to the predictions of simulations within accuracy of few percent (1 to 3%). We demonstrated that we can develop a product in a very short time, based on the simulations, which behaves predictable, although it is not conventional. The Taurus G4 plane has doublebody design and belongs to the category of socalled multibody aircraft. The advantages of the structure is shown in excellent mass distribution along the wing, while it can achieve substantial lower structural weight of aircraft, thereby also use less energy for a particular purpose. The structural aspect can be used in aircraft of different implementations, where the ability to carry loads is of great importance. We emphasize the importance and usefulness of rapid prototyping, innovative construction solutions, unique aerodynamic solutions and CFD optimization, knowledge of the electric propulsion system, and knowledge for the future design of aircraft with low specific energy use. The findings are useful for engineers and researchers.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2174971
The Green Flight Challenge occurred in September 2011 as a competition to spur extreme flight efficiency for general aviation aircraft. In order to compete an aircraft had to demonstrate flight over a 200 mile course at an average ground speed of 100 miles per hour with a fuel efficiency greater than 200 passenger miles per equivalent-gallon. This paper describes the design of Taurus G4, the world’s first four seat electric-powered aircraft, and the flight planning techniques used in winning the competition. The aircraft demonstrated flight over a 196 mile course at an average speed of 107 miles per hour and an average equivalent fuel efficiency of 403.5 passenger miles per equivalent-gallon of automotive gasoline. In this demonstration it showed that battery powered flight is practical for general aviation missions.
We present a method for optimization of a nonplanar airplane wing shape with respect to the total of induced and profile wing drag. Optimization is performed subject to the lift constraint, and one of the following: fixed span, fixed arc-length or fixed wing root bending moment. We demonstrate that a planar wing is the optimal solution in all cases where the profile drag contributes most to the total drag. In the cases of fixed span and fixed root bending moment calculation, the emergence of nonplanar wings occurs as the optimal solution when the induced drag becomes the more significant component. This is marked by a break point where the induced and profile drag are comparable.
In the article a method was presented that allows for the calculation of nematic polymers in confined geometries. The contribution of the project group was the collaboration on a successful implementation of a computational fluid dynamics package in order to apply it to the calculation of nematic order parameter.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2254948