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Artist concept of a future vehicle with rotary wings.

Rotary wing research includes exploring and developing tools, technologies and knowledge to enable radical improvements in rotary wing vehicles that can greatly enhance the air transportation system.

Research efforts advance technologies that increase rotorcraft speed, range and payload, and decrease noise, vibration and emissions. It will enable improved computer-based prediction methods and technologies for designing future high-speed, efficient rotorcraft of various sizes and configurations that will be viable as commercial vehicles operating in U.S. air transportation system.

For questions regarding the Rotary Wing Project, contact Susan Gorton.

The Rotary Wing Project is organized around Research Themes that articulate the longer-term, important areas of research necessary to advance the state of the art for a flight regime or discipline. Within the context of the themes, nearer-term technological capabilities necessary to help overcome national challenges in air transportation are defined as Technical Challenges (TCs).

Research Themes and Technical Challenges (TCs)
Theme	TC Title	TC Description
Advanced Efficient Propulsion	Variable Speed Power Turbine Technology Demonstration	Demonstrate 50% improvement in efficient operational capability using a Variable Speed Power Turbine concept
Advanced Efficient Propulsion	Two-Speed Drive System Demonstration	Demonstrate two-speed drive system with less than 2% power loss while maintaining current power-to-weight ratios
Advanced Concepts and Configurations	Three Active Rotor Concepts Evaluated	Quantify performance, noise and vibration benefits of three Active Rotor concepts by test and analysis
Advanced Efficient Propulsion	35% Accuracy Improvements in Computational Fluid Dynamics	Demonstrate 35% improvement in accuracy of predictions for rotor loads and performance for both hover and forward flight
Rotorcraft Integration into NextGen	(Longer-term TC may be identified at a later date.)	" "




	+ High-Resolution Navier- Stokes Code Development for Rotorcraft Aeromechanics + Combustion Powered Actuators (COMPACT) for Aerodynamic Flow Control on Rotorcraft Blades + Modeling High-Speed Civil Tiltrotor Transports in the Next Generation Airspace

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