Aeronautics & Air-Transport Group
Background: The Aeronautics Group encompasses both design and operation of aircraft, proudly tracing its origins back to Sir Frederick Handley Page who established in 1909 at the Northampton Institute (now City University) the first aeronautical laboratory in the UK. Aeronautics involves a diverse set of disciplines including, on the design side, requirements capture and mission planning, aerodynamics and flight dynamics, structures and aeroelastics, propulsion, aircraft systems and control, design-for-manufacture; on the operational side, business and human resource management, ground operations and logistics, maintenance, human factors, economics and law. Safety and reliability are important considerations in both design and operation of aircraft. Current research in aviation, across business, research organisations and academia, is influenced by the priorities established by the Advisory Council on Aeronautics Research in Europe (www.acare4europe.com) and its Strategic Research Agenda. Aeronautics research at City is no exception.
Mission: to develop new technologies and operational practice for the air transport industry (both manufacturers and operators) towards the achievement of a secure, affordable and environmentally sustainable air transportation system; to exploit aerospace technologies in the renewable energy industry.
Structure Expertise & Activities
Viscous Flows and Flow Control
- Active and passive laminar flow control
- Turbulent separation control
- Shock-wave / boundary layer interaction control
- Laminar-turbulent transition modelling and prediction
- Low-order viscous flow modelling
Fixed and Rotary Wing Aeronautical Design
- Helicopter nonlinear dynamics modelling
- Propulsion integration
- Aerodynamics of cylindrical wings for Micro Air Vehicles
- Missile configuration aerodynamic assessment and design
Structural Dynamics and Aeroelasticity
- Structural and aeroelastic modelling of composite wings
- Dynamic stiffness formulation
- Vibration and buckling analysis
- Symbolic computation
- Dynamic response and flutter analysis of complete aircraft configurations
Air Transport, Reliability and Safety
- Feasibility of establishing low cost carriers in Taiwan
- Examining safety management influence in the space tourism industry
- The potential economic impact for the UK of threats to curtail air transport services arising from measures to slow down global warming and from declining global oil stocks
- Analysis of aircraft accidents in Nigerian airspace and their effect on global aviation safety
- Integration of fatigue risk management into a safety management system