Abstract:  The field of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) encompasses Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Urban Air Mobility (UAM), and Regional Air Mobility (RAM). The vast number of conceptual designs that have been produced by these industries represent novel and state-of-the-art solutions to air travel and cargo delivery, but their acceptance heavily depends on how quiet they can be. Multi-fidelity computational aerodynamics and computational aeroacoustics methods have been developed and assessed for prediction of advanced air mobility vehicles from the scale of UAS to RAM. The first part of the talk will address advanced turbulence modeling techniques, aeroacoustic sources, and multirotor trim optimization in the scope of high-fidelity methods. Fundamental single rotor and dual rotor interactions will guide study of the full multirotor configurations. The second part of the talk will address a low-fidelity framework more applicable to conceptual design in industry. Transcend Air’s Vy 400 is shown to meet the most stringent FAA noise requirements while exceeding the capabilities of traditional VTOL aircraft. The development of multi-fidelity methods will enable proper evaluation of performance and noise from design through certification. 

Bio: Austin Thai is a PhD Candidate in the Unsteady Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics Laboratory (PI: Dr. Sheryl Grace) at Boston University and an R&D Engineer at Transcend Air Corp. His research focuses on developing and validating computational methods for multirotor aerodynamics and aeroacoustics.