A team from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics has moved close to the NASA’s aggressive objective to develop quieter subsonic commercial planes with 70 percent less fuel consumption and 75 percent less NOx emissions than the current commercial planes by 2035. The AeroAstro team has designed two green airplanes with one of them reading exactly the same eco-specifications. The two designs, the 180-passenger D “double bubble” series and the 350 passenger H “hybrid wing body” series, aim to replace the Boeing 737 class aircraft and the 777 class aircraft respectively.
The D series (pictured above) touts a reconfigured tube and wing structure, two partial cylinders, an engine displaced to the rear of the fuselage, and a profuse use of the Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI) technique to meet NASA’s long-term fuel burn, emissions reduction and runway length objectives.
The H series also utilizes the same technology as the former does. It’s a triangular-shaped hybrid wing body aircraft without a tail. Multiple smaller engines are there to explore different propulsion architectures for the plane. The researchers are continuing to improve the design to meet NASA’s objectives.
The MIT crew also includes Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation and Pratt & Whitney.
Via: MIT