khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) (05/05/88)
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NASA'S ADVANCED TURBOPROP WINS ESTEEMED COLLIER TROPHY
May 4, 1988
RELEASE: 88-59
NASA's Lewis Research Center Lewis, Cleveland, and the
NASA/Industry Advanced Turboprop Team have been selected, by a
committee of distinguished aerospace leaders from throughout the
United States, to receive the prestigious 1987 Robert J. Collier
Trophy.
The trophy will be presented May 13, 1988, at the Shoreham
Hotel in Washington, D.C., at the Annual Robert J. Collier Trophy
Dinner hosted by the National Aviation Club.
The Collier Trophy, established in 1911, is awarded annually
by the National Aeronautic Association for the greatest
achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America. The
trophy was first presented to Glenn Curtis for achievements in
developing a seaplane. The most recent award recognized the
around-the-world flight of the Voyager aircraft in 1986.
Lewis and the NASA/Industry Advanced Turboprop Team are
being honored for developing the technology and testing advanced
turboprop propulsion systems that offer dramatic reductions in
fuel usage and operating costs for subsonic transport aircraft.
A series of successful flight and ground tests have
demonstrated that advanced turboprop propulsion systems can
reduce fuel comsumption by 25 to 30 percent over future turbofan
engines with equivalent levels of advanced technology. This
reduction in fuel usage should lower direct operating costs for
future airliners by up to 15 percent.
To reap the benefits of this major advance in aeropropulsion
technology, the U.S. aviation industry is currently planning the
development of several new engines and aircraft that incorporate
advanced turboprop propulsion systems.
The initial concepts for the award-winning advanced
turboprop propulsion systems originated at Lewis in the mid-
1970's in response to rapidly increasing fuel prices resulting
from the initial OPEC oil embargo.
Early cooperative research by Lewis and Hamilton-Standard,
Windsor Locks, Conn, resulted in advanced propeller designs
featuring thin, highly swept and twisted blades. In the early
1980's, Lewis also worked with GE Aircraft Engines, Cincinnati,
where on the Unducted Fan (UDF), a concept of a gearlesss,
counter-rotating propeller engine. The feasibility of achieving
major improvements in aerodynamic efficiency with these unique
propellers, operating at high speeds (Mach 0.8), was subsequently
demonstrated in wind tunnel tests at NASA and industry
facilities.
This led to a major NASA/industry/university program to
develop the related aerodynamic, structural, mechanical and
acoustic technologies required to verify the performance of these
systems in ground and flight tests. Managed by the Lewis
Advanced Turboprop Project Office, the program also incorporated
technical expertise from two other NASA aeronautics research
centers: Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.; and Ames
Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., which includes Dryden
Flight Research Facility, Edwards, Calif. More than 40
industrial contracts and 15 university grants also supported the
program.
The program reached its goals in 1987, when three series of
flight tests verified the readiness of advanced turboprop
propulsion technology for commercial engine systems development.
The flight testing included the NASA/GE/Boeing flight tests
of the UDF engine on a B-727 aircraft, the NASA/Lockheed Propfan
Test Assessment of a single-rotation advanced turboprop on a
Gulfstream II aircraft, and GE/McDonnell Douglas flight tests of
the UDF on an MD-80 aircraft.
A joint venture of Pratt & Whitney and Allison conducted
extensive ground tests of a geared counter-rotating propfan
propulsion system in 1987 in preparation for flight tests on an
MD-80 aircraft later this year.
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Eric