Wing-mounted turbine for generating electricity and increasing thrust

Abstract

A turbine mounted behind an aircraft wing provides a specified proportion of a propulsive force in the aircraft flight direction to an amount of power generated by the turbine when driven by the airflow trailing the wing. The turbine converts a portion of the otherwise wasted energy in the rotational vortices trailing the aircraft wing into thrust that reduces aircraft drag while also providing electricity to power electrical systems on the aircraft. In one embodiment, the method used to construct the turbine saves computation time by using an optimization routine to define a preliminary turbine configuration based on an idealized vortex model and then matches it to the flow trailing an actual aircraft wing. The turbine can also use the energy in the wake solely to generate electricity without increasing drag on the aircraft or solely to reduce drag without generating electricity.