Tag: Graham Warwick

Digitization, Electrification and Additive Manufacturing to Revolutionize Propulsion and Energy

Panelists: Moderator Graham Warwick, Aviation Week & Space Technology; Jean Boti, Airbus Group; Douglas Juul, Lockheed Martin Corp.; Mary Beth Koelbl, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center; Neil R. Garrigan, GE Aviation

by Lawrence Garrett, AIAA Web Editor

Whether with aircraft, space launch vehicles or missile systems platforms, the aerospace propulsion and energy sector is undergoing dramatic changes sure to revolutionize the industry.

From advancements in additive manufacturing to rapidly advancing digitization and bandwidth, connectivity and cybersecurity, the propulsion and energy sector is working hard to keep pace. That was the main theme during “Technology Development and Trends in Propulsion and Energy,” a panel at the 2015 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum.

“Additive really is revolutionizing the way we design hardware,” said Mary Beth Koelbl, deputy director of the Propulsion Systems Department with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “It’s enabling you to design hardware with geometries and shapes and features that you’ve never really been able to do before.”

NASA is being asked to certify additive manufacturing in many areas, Koelbl said, such as for its Space Launch System. She added that NASA has designed everything it could with additive manufacturing and, as a result, there has been “a dramatic reduction in part count and equally dramatic reductions in cost and schedule.”

Koelbl believes additive manufacturing has the “ability to be a very disruptive technology way beyond NASA” and said it’s important that the industry work together to determine how to certify additive manufacturing for flight applications and how to make it more integral in design.

Douglas Juul, manager of systems technology with Missiles and Fire Control at Lockheed Martin Corp., highlighted some of his company’s missile production programs, which rely on the same types of propulsion systems. He said that although his organization is not a propulsion provider, they incorporate propulsion solutions as part of their products.

“Risk and value are some of the major issues that we struggle with, because … the propulsion systems are a major part of the structure in our weapons” Juul said. “They integrate and get involved into every aspect of all of our systems, whether it’s electrical, mechanical, aerodynamic.”

Jean Boti, executive vice president of research and technology with Airbus Group, cited “Flightpath 2050,” Europe’s vision for aviation plan, and said that Airbus has been aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 75 percent and noise by 65 percent by 2050.

Boti called the task huge and said that Airbus decided to take it on with disruptive technologies. He said their idea is “to have this electric propulsion that is assisted by thermal.”

Neil R. Garrigan, executive manager of aviation advanced technology with GE Aviation, said that with the growth of electrification and digitization — in which more bandwidth will be needed — as well as more autonomous systems and sensors and the proliferation of unmanned vehicles, a key question is: “What might that world look like, and how will it impact propulsion and energy systems as we know them today?”

Garrigan said alternative and renewable energies and energy storage, whether electrical or thermal, will “be a big enabler and potentially a disrupter.”

“We should all be preparing to shape the future of flight,” Garrigan said. “It’s an exciting time. We’re passionate for it, and we like to share the passion that everyone else has as well.”

Video

All 2015 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum Videos

Unprecedented Global Partnerships, Collaboration Fuels F-35 Program

Panelists: Moderator Graham Warwick, managing editor, Aviation Week and Space Technology; Eric Branyan, vice president, F-35 Supply Chain Management, Lockheed Martin; Declan Holland, vice president of U.S. business, BAE Systems Inc.; Frank Carus, vice president and F-35 program manager, Northrop Grumman Corp.; Thomas Johns, director, F135 Weapon System Integration, Military Engines, Pratt & Whitney; John Mazur, director of foreign military sales, Joint Strike Fighter Joint Program Office; J.D. McFarlan, vice president, F-35 Test and Verification, Lockheed Martin

by Lawrence Garrett, AIAA Web Editor

AIAA AVIATION Forum, Atlanta, June 26, 2018 – The successful development of the F-35 has required unprecedented worldwide partnerships and extraordinary collaboration between private industry and government, said a panel of industry experts June 26 during the “Reflection on the Partnerships Within the F-35 Enterprise” session at the 2018 AIAA AVIATION Forum in Atlanta.

“I can honestly tell you that in the over 30 years that I’ve been in the business … certainly the [Joint Strike Fighter] F-35 program is unlike any other program I have worked on,” said Frank Carus, vice president and JSF F-35 program manager at Northrop Grumman.

Carus noted that the different intricacies of the program were incredibly challenging but that one of the unique characteristics was the “best athlete” approach management adopted.

As Carus described it, the program utilized the person who brought the best value to a position. He said that in certain positions, Lockheed Martin employees worked for Northrop Grumman managers, Northrop Grumman staff worked for BAE Systems staff, and Northrop Grumman and BAE people worked for Lockheed Martin.

“I’d never seen or been part of an organization like that,” Carus said. “It was unique.”

Thomas Johnson, director of F135 Weapon System Integration for Military Engines at Pratt & Whitney, said that “working together” was a critical ingredient for program success and that the concept applies to companies and organizations as well as people.

“The trick in a big program like this is getting all three functioning,” he said, adding that there were also a number of other complexities, including variations in product, development organization, customer and location.

J.D. McFarlan, vice president for test and evaluation at Lockheed Martin, said the F-35 test and evaluation program was over 20 years in the making.

“The F-35 program is vast and could not be done without a worldwide partnership,” he said, calling the F-35’s undertaking “an international program” from “start to finish.”

Eric Branyan, vice president of F-35 Supply Chain Management at Lockheed Martin, said some international cooperation resulted in improvements on overall time, cost and quality.

“The partnerships are not just there to build the program,” Branyan said. “The partnerships are there really to make the airplane a better part because of the sum of all those pieces together.”

Declan Holland, vice president of U.S. business with BAE, cited BAE’s expertise in short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft, systems engineering, subcontract management, structural testing and advanced manufacturing.

Holland said the U.K.’s experience in advanced manufacturing, acquired through past work on the Typhoon, has been implemented into the F-35 program.

John Mazur, director of foreign military sales for the JSF Joint Program Office, said the F-35 program is constantly evolving and will keep accelerating.

“This program is nothing today like it was 20 years ago or 15 years ago,” Mazur said. “The landscape for the international part is constantly evolving, and so every day, we have a new set of problems that comes scooting across our desks that we have to reach out and try to find some workable solution.”

Panel moderator Graham Warwick, technology managing editor for Aviation Week and Space Technology, recalled that prior aeronautical programs also experienced setbacks.

“They all had tremendous problems either in development or in early service introduction,” he said. “No program of that scale ever goes smoothly, and the F-35 is no exception.”

But, Warwick said, “like the F-16, the F-15, and the F-22, the chances are, the indications are, that we will have a truly capable machine at the end of this.”

Video

All 2018 AIAA AVIATION Forum Videos

High-Power Systems’ Needs Drive Design Challenges

Panelists: Moderator Graham Warwick, technology managing editor, Aviation Week and Space Technology; Randy Furnas, chief of the power division, Research and Engineering Directorate, NASA’s Glenn Research Center; Rick Hooker, design engineer, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics; John Nairus, chief engineer, Propulsion and Control Division, Air Force Research Laboratory; John Scott, chief technologist, Propulsion and Power Division, NASA’s Johnson Space Center

by Hannah Godofsky, AIAA Communications

Today, the F-35 or 787 are both state-of-the-art — each has a few hundred kilowatts of secondary power installed on the aircraft. But future demands for electricity in air and space systems will be even  greater, and design will need to adapt, a panel of experts said July 26 at 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

“When I now look at electric propulsion, I feel like being in on the ground floor of a technology that’s going to change aerospace.  It’s going to enable space missions that we can’t do at the moment, and it’s going to change the way aircraft operate. Electric propulsion is actually here,” Graham Warwick, the technology managing editor for Aviation Week and Space Technology, said while introducing the “High Power Systems for Aerospace Applications” panel.

Warwick mentioned several small aircraft that have contributed to advancements in electric propulsion, such as Solar Impulse-2 or the E-Fan demonstrator plane, but he said, “Really, what interests all of us in this room is the high-power stuff. It’s the powering the airliners. That’s where the potential is. The potential for changing the environmental impact of aviation is on these high-power systems. What I’m really interested in is to be here as we’re beginning to explore these high-power systems.”

John Nairus, a chief engineer with the Propulsion and Control Division at the Air Force Research Lab, provided some clarity as to what makes something a high-power system.

“In the Air Force, when we talk about high-power systems, what we’re really talking about is a megawatt,” he said, adding that electric power has become flight-critical for most military aircraft.

“If you have a blip in your electrical power system, in the blink of an eye, you can lose your aircraft, because these aircraft are inherently unstable.”

Rick Hooker, a design engineer with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, said high-power systems are driving new aircraft design.

“They’re designing the aircraft we’re coming up with, and they’re driving how we are integrating propulsion-airframe integration,” he said. “Really, I see efficient propulsion-airframe integration as an enabler for high-power systems.”

Hooker said some new aircraft engines are now the same size as the aircraft fuselage, which has a huge impact on the design of new airplanes. He described some of the cutting-edge research that has been done in making the integration of high-power systems into aircraft more efficient.

“Over-wing nacelle installations can be actually 5 percent more efficient than underwing nacelles,” he said.

John Scott brought up a different definition of high-power systems that applies to use in space: “Anything beyond 150 kilowatts that is provided today by the international space station.”

He explored, “A value proposition for what might happen if we were to drive well beyond those power levels, thereby accelerating the exploration of Mars and possibly even spinning off to the traditional energy industry a disruptive solution.”

Scott said high-power systems in space involve a lot of complicated tradeoffs in expense and technology and can drastically change mission timelines or the amount of mass that needs to be sent into space.

Panelists overall agreed that high-power systems are necessary to take big, disruptive leaps in technology and capability.

Video

All 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum Videos

Aviation Week’s Check 6 Podcast: Beyond The Hype—What’s Happening With Air Taxis

In Aviation Week’s most recent Check 6 Podcast, “Beyond The Hype—What’s Happening With Air Taxis,” Aviation Week Managing Editor Ben Goldstein is joined by Aviation Week editors Graham Warwick and Jens Flottau, as well as Sergio Cecutta, founder and partner at SMG Consulting, to discuss “the progress underway in the fast-growing advanced air mobility industry.”
Listen to Podcast (Aviation Week)