NASA SBIR 2014 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
ZONA Technology, Inc.
9489 East Ironwood Square Drive
Scottsdale, AZ 85258 - 4578
(480) 945-9988

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Ping-Chih Chen
pc@zonatech.com
9489 E. Ironwood Square Drive
Scottsdale, AZ 85258 - 4578
(480) 945-9988

CORPORATE/BUSINESS OFFICIAL (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Jennifer M. Scherr
jennifer@zonatech.com
9489 East Ironwood Square Drive
Scottsdale, AZ 85258 - 4578
(480) 945-9988

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 5

Technology Available (TAV) Subtopics
Aerodynamic Efficiency is a Technology Available (TAV) subtopic that includes NASA Intellectual Property (IP). Do you plan to use the NASA IP under the award?
No

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
The overall objective of this Phase I project is to develop a nonlinear trim module in FUN3D for enabling the determined and over-determined trim analyses to be performed by FUN3D with static aeroelastic effects. Based on an optimization formulation, the over-determined trim analysis can determine the optimum control surface scheduling of multiple control surfaces to achieve the best aerodynamic efficiency of the aircraft using the high-fidelity Navier-Stokes (N-S) solver in FUN3D. At the critical loads flight conditions, the optimum control surface scheduling can minimize the design loads; leading to a lighter and more flexible structural design. At the cruise conditions, the optimum control surface scheduling can aeroelastically deform the more flexible structure to an optimum shape for induced drag minimization at cruise.

One non-conventional design concept under investigation by NASA is the Variable Camber Continuous Trailing Edge Flap (VCCTEF) system that utilizes multiple advanced actuators such as shape memory alloys (SMA) to achieve an optimum continuous deformed wing shape for obtaining the best aerodynamic efficiency. The VCCTEF design concept for the aerodynamic efficiency improvement will be ultimately verified by wind tunnel testing. However, such a wind tunnel testing will be impractically without a viable wind tunnel test plan that can provide a guideline for seeking the optimum actuation scheduling in the multi-dimensional design space. This viable wind tunnel test plan for testing the VCCTEF concept can be established by the FUN3D nonlinear trim module.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The proposed Phase I effort is highly relevant to several on-going and future NASA projects in NASA's fixed wing project under Fundamental Aeronautics Program. Initiatives such as the elastic aircraft flight control and Truss-Braced Wing (TBW) development will benefit from the research conducted in the proposed Phase I effort. NASA is currently studying the application of the VCCTEF to a generic transport model (GTM) and plans to perform a wind tunnel test for measuring the drag characteristics of this VCCTEF-GTM configuration in FY2014-2015. The FUN3D nonlinear trim module can be adopted by NASA to calculate the optimum SMA actuations for minimum drag prediction to provide a guideline for establishing a viable wind tunnel test plan.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The FUN3D nonlinear trim module can provide accurate prediction of optimum flap scheduling and can be applied to many categories of flight vehicles including blended wing-bodies, joined-wings, sub/supersonic transports, morphing aircraft, space planes, reusable launch vehicles, and similar revolutionary concepts being pursued. Hence, the proposed research and its outcomes will be highly needed for designing the next generation of civil as well as military aircraft to meet the stringent future performance goals.