Aircraft Propellers—Is There a Future?

Pedro Alves, Miguel Silvestre and Pedro Gamboa
Additional contact information
Pedro Alves: C-MAST—Center for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies, University of Beira Interior, Rua Marquês d’Ávila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Miguel Silvestre: C-MAST—Center for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies, University of Beira Interior, Rua Marquês d’Ávila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Pedro Gamboa: C-MAST—Center for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies, University of Beira Interior, Rua Marquês d’Ávila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-17

Abstract: The race for speed ruled the early Jet Age on aviation. Aircraft manufacturers chased faster and faster planes in a fight for pride and capability. In the early 1970s, dreams were that the future would be supersonic, but fuel economy and unacceptable noise levels made that era never happen. After the 1973 oil crisis, the paradigm changed. The average cruise speed on newly developed aircraft started to decrease in exchange for improvements in many other performance parameters. At the same pace, the airliner’s power-plants are evolving to look more like a ducted turboprop, and less like a pure jet engine as the pursuit for the higher bypass ratios continues. However, since the birth of jet aircraft, the propeller-driven plane has lost its dominant place, associated with the idea that going back to propeller-driven airplanes, and what it represents in terms of modernity and security, has started a propeller avoidance phenomenon with travelers and thus with airlines. Today, even with the modest research effort since the 1980s, advanced propellers are getting efficiencies closer to jet-powered engines at their contemporary typical cruise speeds. This paper gives a brief overview of the performance trends in aviation since the last century. Comparison examples between aircraft designed on different paradigms are presented. The use of propellers as a reborn propulsive device is discussed.

Keywords: propeller; aircraft; turboprop; flight efficiency; flight speed (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4157/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4157/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:16:p:4157-:d:397659

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().