Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization Branch
Engine Design Challenge: Re-Engine a Boeing 777
The year is 2020. The International Environmental Council, exercising its
considerable new powers, has mandated strict new requirements on the
exhaust emissions of commercial aircraft. At the same time, the Federal
Aviation Administration has implemented its new, vastly more restrictive
"Stage VII" aircraft noise regulations. Both of these new environmental requirements
are effective immediately, with costly, worldwide departure fees penalizing
all existing aircraft out of compliance with the new rules. Two U.S. airlines
have already succumbed to bankruptcy. With stratospheric ticket prices,
airports are like ghost towns. Worldwide recession threatens.
Reeling from this environmental one-two punch, the U.S. aircraft industry must
rise to meet the challenge by re-engining their most advanced aircraft
with new, environmentally "green" engines.
You are the lead project engineer of General Whitney's new Advanced Clean
Engine (ACE) Division. You are in charge of a crack team of joint NASA/industry
conceptual aircraft engine design engineers, highly proficient in aerothermal
and aeromechanical engine design. Your job is to re-engine Boeing's 777
airliner with new, quiet, clean engines that meet the new
noise and emissions requirements.
