Patent Application
20220041264
This application claims benefit to German Patent Application No. DE 10 2020 121 030.2, filed on Aug. 10, 2020, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
The present disclosure relates to an aircraft, in particular a fully electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, and to an advantageous method for producing such an aircraft.
VTOL is the cross-language name given in the aerospace industry to any type of aircraft, drone or rocket that has the capability of lifting off and landing again substantially vertically and without a runway. This collective term is used below in a broad sense that includes not just fixed-wing aircraft with wings, but rather also rotary-wing aircraft such as helicopters, gyrocopters, gyrodynes and hybrids such as composite or combination helicopters and convertiplanes. Short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft, short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft and vertical take-off and horizontal landing (VTHL) aircraft are also included.
CN104691751A discloses a safe triangle-supported and lightweight multi-rotor aircraft with a tenon and mortise structure, which aircraft is composed of fuselage, rotors, a flight control module arranged in the center of the fuselage, and an integrated, wiring-harness-like connection line. The fuselage comprises a horizontal structure plate and a multiplicity of lightweight vertical structure plates, which are connected by means of tenons and mortises to form a triangular load-bearing structure, the outer side of which forms a frame and the inner side of which is supported at an opposite angle. The rotors are arranged at the outermost points of intersection of the vertical plates in a vertical direction, whereas the horizontal plate is connected to the vertical surface of the frame and is used for fastening. A multiplicity of circular rotor holes, which protect the rotors and the diameters of which are somewhat larger than those of the rotors, are formed in the horizontal plate by virtue of the rotor drive shaft being used as a circle central point. Finally, a multiplicity of tenons is arranged at the contact point of each vertical plate and the horizontal plate, which is correspondingly provided with mortises which are connected to the tenons.
In an embodiment, the present disclosure provides an aircraft. The aircraft includes wings with integrated ducted fans. The ducted fans each have a duct with cutouts and a guide grille fitted into the cutouts.
Subject matter of the present disclosure will be described in even greater detail below based on the exemplary figures. All features described and/or illustrated herein can be used alone or combined in different combinations. The features and advantages of various embodiments will become apparent by reading the following detailed description with reference to the attached drawings, which illustrate the following:
The present disclosure provides an aircraft, in particular a fully electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft in the above sense, and a method for producing such an aircraft.
The approach according to the present disclosure is based on the insight that a VTOL aircraft that can be used in urban environments requires drive units in different positions and orientations, which drive units are on the one hand capable of handling every phase of flight (take-off, transition, cruise and landing) but on the other hand do not exceed a manageable number of individual parts.
For the lift of the aircraft, it is the case here that, instead of an exposed rotor, ducted fans are provided which are integrated into the wing surface, such as are known, outside the aerospace sector, for example from hovercraft or swamp craft. The cylindrical housing of the air channel—hereinafter referred to as duct—reduces the shear losses that arise owing to turbulence at the blade tips of such a ducted fan.
According to the present disclosure, said duct is equipped with cutouts which allow it to be equipped in modular fashion—that is to say in accordance with a modular principle—with a guide grille (stator) which is optimized for the construction variant and direction of rotation of the respective propeller drive. The same concept can be used with further construction variants, such that ducts and specific guide grilles can be combined as desired in order to achieve cost savings.
Further advantageous configurations are described herein. For example, the guide grilles may be cohesively fitted into the cutouts, and in particular adhesively bonded therein. Through the use of such a universal “adhesive garage” on the housings, the specific stator variants can be produced inexpensively in various embodiments and used universally.
In the illustrated configuration, two of the struts of each guide grille (12) run parallel to one another in the incident-flow direction of the wing (10) and tangentially flank the associated electric motor (13). In each case two beams, joined to said webs, combine with the beams of the respective other web, which are situated diametrically oppositely in relation to the motor (13), to form a St Andrew's or diagonal cross and stiffen the electric motor (13) such that the guide grille (12) accommodates all horizontal forces in the plane of the motor. As is suggested in the figure, the struts of the guide grille (12) have, for this purpose, a width which corresponds approximately to the height of the electric motor (13).
The advantage of this approach can be seen in a juxtaposition with
The individual ducts (11, 14) of the fans may for example be assembled from honeycomb cores with inserts, and thereupon preferably coated in multiple layers with CFRP. In the present context, this is to be understood to mean any composite material in which carbon fibers are embedded into a plastics matrix that serves for connecting the fibers and for filling the intermediate spaces. As a matrix, aside from conventional epoxy resin, use may also be made of other thermosets or thermoplastics.
In the present embodiment, the electric motor (13—
While subject matter of the present disclosure has been illustrated and described in detail in the drawings and foregoing description, such illustration and description are to be considered illustrative or exemplary and not restrictive. Any statement made herein characterizing the invention is also to be considered illustrative or exemplary and not restrictive as the invention is defined by the claims. It will be understood that changes and modifications may be made, by those of ordinary skill in the art, within the scope of the following claims, which may include any combination of features from different embodiments described above.
The terms used in the claims should be construed to have the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the foregoing description. For example, the use of the article “a” or “the” in introducing an element should not be interpreted as being exclusive of a plurality of elements. Likewise, the recitation of “or” should be interpreted as being inclusive, such that the recitation of “A or B” is not exclusive of “A and B,” unless it is clear from the context or the foregoing description that only one of A and B is intended. Further, the recitation of “at least one of A, B and C” should be interpreted as one or more of a group of elements consisting of A, B and C, and should not be interpreted as requiring at least one of each of the listed elements A, B and C, regardless of whether A, B and C are related as categories or otherwise. Moreover, the recitation of “A, B and/or C” or “at least one of A, B or C” should be interpreted as including any singular entity from the listed elements, e.g., A, any subset from the listed elements, e.g., A and B, or the entire list of elements A, B and C.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 2020 121 030.2 | Aug 2020 | DE | national |
