SUbsonic Single Aft eNgine (SUSAN) System Integration Analysis with the Future Aircraft Sizing Tool (FAST)
Abstract
NASA proposed the SUbsonic Single Aft eNgine electrofan concept (SUSAN) to meet the increasing demand for electrified aircraft designs, which has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% and limit aviation’s environmental impact. SUSAN’s propulsion system consists of one turbofan engine and sixteen distributed electric propulsors. It is designed as a commercial transport that carries a 180-passenger payload for 2,500 nautical miles, while cruising at Mach 0.785 and 37,000 ft. SUSAN’s design includes multiple advanced technologies, such as a single aft engine with boundary layer ingestion, distributed electric propulsion system, and several state-of-art electric subsystems. This paper integrates various technologies and methods developed for SUSAN within a single modeling and simulation environment. SUSAN is modeled using the Future Aircraft Sizing Tool (FAST) developed by the University of Michigan. Using aircraft specifications and a design mission profile gathered from literature, FAST evaluates the system-level feasibility and performance of SUSAN and its integrated technologies. Additional propulsion system and BLI models are introduced to incorporate SUSAN’s advanced technologies into its design. The resulting SUSAN model has an MTOW of 189,394 lbm, an OEW of 117,460 lbm, and a predicted block fuel burn for the design mission of 30,701 lbm. The SUSAN model has a high lift to drag ratio of 20.49, encouraging further investigation into how these advanced technologies can reduce dependency on control surface sizing and improve aircraft efficiency overall. FAST predicts the cruise TSFC for the aft engine 0.4372 lbm/(lbf · hr), which includes the effects of BLI technology.
Yi-Chih "Arenas" Wang
PhD student and Graduate Research Assistant
Arenas Wang is a PhD student and graduate research assistant in the IDEAS Lab at the University of Michigan.
Miranda Stockhausen
PhD student and Graduate Research Assistant
Miranda is a PhD student in the Aerospace Engineering department at the University of Michigan.
Paul Mokotoff
PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant
Paul Mokotoff is a graduate student research assistant in the IDEAS Lab at the University of Michigan.
Maxfield Arnson
PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant
Maxfield Arnson is a graduate student research assistant in the IDEAS Lab at the University of Michigan.
