Skip to main content
NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division World-class modeling, simulation, and supercomputing in support of the NASA mission

Increasing Modeling Fidelity in the Assessment of Electric Aircraft for Regional and Urban Air Mobility

AMS Seminar Series

Speaker: Matthew Clarke, Stanford University

Presentation

Seminar Slide Deck (PDF-3.6MB)

Abstract

Approaches to eVTOL aircraft design have been widely haphazard due to no established framework for assessing the performance of non-conventional aircraft configurations. Oftentimes, designers rely on simple first-order approximations and correlative methods based on historical data to infer performance. These, however, fail to capture some of the nuances encountered during preliminary fight testing. In my talk, I discuss both the necessity and methodology of incorporating medium-fidelity analytical techniques into the conceptual design stage of eVTOL aircraft for regional and urban air mobility. In the first half of this presentation, I introduce the idea of integrating battery lifetime modeling into the assessment of all-electric aircraft meant to service commuter routes, both within polycentric metropolitan regions and between residential and commercial spaces. In the latter half of this talk, I examine the applicability of a frequency-domain approach for capturing vehicle acoustic footprint and assessing the impact of rotor optimization on overall radiated noise and performance. Collectively, such detailed approaches to electric architecture and acoustic modeling can equip air transportation network modelers with vital information critical to improving strategies for optimizing vehicle utility and maximizing revenue from such a service.

Biography

Photo of Matthew Clarke
Matthew Clarke is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AA) at Stanford University. He is a Tau Beta Pi Fellow and holds an M.S. in AA from Stanford and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University. His research focuses on aircraft design, aerodynamics and aeroacoustics, with an emphasis on the analysis and optimization of vehicles for regional and urban air mobility. His work also encompasses system modeling of novel battery technology for electric propulsion applications and the assessment of vehicle noise on transportation network planning. He also directs research efforts in the Stanford University Aerospace Vehicle Environment (SUAVE) group within the Aerospace Design Lab directed by Professor Juan Alonso. In this capacity, he coordinates the development of the open-source tool for designing, analyzing and optimizing conventional passenger, drone, supersonic and eVTOL aircraft.