Virtual Flight Testing

Aircraft manufacturers spend millions of dollars to put new planes in the sky for thousands of hours of flight tests. The tests evaluate the safety and performance of the aircraft, but also slow down development. A virtual flight test could reduce the number of actual flight tests needed.

Kyle Squires has a better idea. The ASU professor of mechanical engineering is developing a computer simulation that he says will be less dangerous, more effective, and more efficient than an actual flight test.

“Initially, you would need fewer flight tests; the Nirvana would be that you wouldn't need any at all,” Squires says.

To create the computer model, Squires begins with a physical model of the plane. He inputs a geometric description of the aircraft into a computer and creates an array of points around it. Then supercomputers at the Maui High-Performance Computing Center in Hawaii calculate the flow field at each point using the velocity and density of air at that point. Visualization software transforms the numerical data into a computer simulation.

“We're at the very edge of what’s possible today in simulating the unsteady flow around full aircraft,” he says.—Linley Erin Hall