5/9/01
AUBURN STUDENTS DESIGN REVOLUTIONARY NEW WING TECHNOLOGY
AUBURN -- In the next decade, commercial airliners could fly farther on less fuel, take-off and land on increasingly smaller landing strips, fly more safely and cause less disturbance to neighborhoods adjacent to airports.
And it could all happen because of the work of two Auburn University aerospace engineering students who have developed an award-winning, revolutionary wing design.
Jeremy Corpening of Spartanburg, S.C., and Chris Reasonover of Birmingham have developed a wing that uses piezoelectric synthetic jet actuators, or Pjets, to reduce drag on airplane wings. Drag, caused by the detachment of air from the wing, causes increased fuel usage and a loss of lift.
Corpening and Reasonover, both of whom will graduate Saturday, May 12, with bachelor's degrees in aerospace engineering, won a regional design competition for their work and have filed for a patent of the technology.
"Jeremy and Chris are two of the hardest working students I've ever run across," said Alumni Professor of Aerospace Engineering Ron Barrett. "They've done some really groundbreaking work on this project. There is a chance that, in the next decade or two, airplanes could be flying with this technology."
The pair's idea was to cut a slot in the wing at the point where the air detaches and becomes what Corpening calls "funky air." They placed the Pjets in complete fiberglass boxes in the slot. The Pjets, which operate like a diaphragm, pull the air back to the surface of the wing and reduce drag and loss of lift, meaning more fuel efficiency and shorter distances needed for both take-off and, strangely enough, landing, too.
"Most people don't realize that you need a similar amount of lift during landing that you do during takeoff," Corpening said. "It's just that, in take-off, you're accelerating into it and, in landing, you're decelerating into it."
The students entered the design a paper and presentation on the design in the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Region II competiton and came away with top honors from among 17 total papers involving 156 participants.
"We met in Dr. Barrett's Adaptive Aerostructures Lab about two years ago," said Reasonover. "I had already discussed working on the project with Dr. Barrett and was told Jeremy wanted to as well. That's how it all started and the rest is history."
The two worked exhaustively on perfecting the design, finding ways to illustrate its effects (finally settling on a titanium tetrachloride flow visualization, which basically turns the air into a sort of smoke that can be seen and caught on film) and preparing for the Atlanta competition. By the time the competition rolled around, they were more than ready.
"We got a lot of questions and a lot of interest -- much more than the rest of the competitors," said Corpening. "They were trying to stump us, but Dr. Barrett had prepared us very well. Nothing compared to what he put us through.
"There was this one question that we'd anticipated, gone over several times and, sure enough, it got asked. I was so ready. By the time it became evident what the question was I was just up there thinking, 'Yeah! Bring it!'"
According to Barrett, it was the first time an Auburn design had won the competition in nine years and only the second time ever in the 52-year history of the competition.
"The honor was especially rewarding because, normally, the better funded schools like Georgia Tech, which concentrate so heavily on these kinds of research, dominate the competition," Barrett said. "But, this time, they weren't anywhere near the caliber of Chris and Jeremy's work."
The next steps for the student inventors is the national AIAA competition in Reno, Nev., in January and waiting for approval of their patent. In the meantime, they have spent time lately reflecting on a friendship that began in a research laboratory, but now extends far beyond that.
Corpening, who hopes someday to become an astronaut, will pursue a graduate degree at Purdue University, while Reasonover hopes to land a job with the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va.
may01:au-wingdesign
CONTACT: Corpening, 334/821-4399; Reasonover, 334/502-9175; or Barrett, 334/844-6825.