Nasa

Nasa has said it developed several green technologies during six years of research, which can offer $250bn of savings for the country’s aviation industry.

Nasa, under its Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project, has developed technologies that can reduce fuel consumption of an airline by half, pollution by 75% and noise to one-eighth of its current levels.

ERA was formed in 2009 to study and document the feasibility, benefits and technical risk of creative vehicle concepts and develop environmentally friendly aviation technologies.

During the course of the mission, which ended in 2015, researchers focused on eight major integrated technology demonstrations in three categories, including airframe technology, propulsion technology and vehicle systems integration.

During the six years of ERA, Nasa spent more than $400m, while $250m in-kind investment was through industry partners.

Nasa aeronautics research associate administrator Jaiwon Shin said: "If these technologies start finding their way into the airline fleet, our computer models show the economic impact could amount to $255bn in operational savings between 2025 and 2050."

"Under the mission, Nasa researchers have developed future aircraft technology that can be used to safely design planes with smaller tails, reducing weight and drag."

Under the mission, Nasa researchers have developed future aircraft technology that can be used to safely design planes with smaller tails, reducing weight and drag. The technology was tested at Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator 757 flying laboratory.

The team developed a new method for stitching large sections of lightweight composite materials together to make damage-tolerant structures that will be used in future lightweight aircraft.

Nasa, along with Air Force Research Laboratory and Michigan-based FlexSys, successfully tested a new morphing wing technology that can help an aircraft to smoothly extend its flaps without having any drag-inducing, noise-enhancing gaps for air to flow through.

During the ERA mission, the Nasa research team in collaboration with General Electric developed a process to refine a turbine engine’s compressor stage design to improve its aerodynamic efficiency. The technology claimed to offer a 2.5% reduction in fuel burn.

The space agency was involved with Pratt & Whitney to develop an advance design to improve propulsion efficiency and minimise noise of the latter’s geared turbofan jet engine. The technology is said to reduce noise and 15% fuel burn of the engine.

Nasa further partnered with Pratt & Whitney to improve the design for a jet engine combustor, which claimed to cut down pollution by nearly 80%.

Image: Researchers with Nasa’s ERA project co-ordinated wind tunnel tests of an active flow control system. Photo: courtesy of Nasa / Dominic Hart.