Expanding Natural Laminar Flow for Reduced Aircraft Emissions

Efforts to reduce aviation emissions cover a wide range of time scales, from the immediate benefits of fleet renewal and the use of sustainable aviation fuels, to the long-term benefits of next-generation aircraft enabling greater efficiencies and alternative energy sources. Aerodynamics plays an important role in enhancing future aircraft efficiency, and natural laminar flow (NLF) offers one of the greatest levers for aerodynamic improvement. The talk will discuss the current state of NLF application to large commercial transports, and will consider the challenges of expanding NLF for future aircraft. High-fidelity modeling of laminar-turbulent transition is one of the critical enablers for NLF. The talk will present an overview of current methods for transition prediction, and will highlight some recent progress aimed at aircraft applications.