April 6, 2009 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is pleased to announce that its Journal of Energy has been commended by the Space Foundation for its role in disseminating aerodynamic vehicle design technology developed by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in the late 1970s. The commendation was presented to AIAA executive director Bob Dickman at a ceremony held in conjunction with the Space Foundation's annual meeting, on April 2 in Colorado Springs, Colo., at which the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Aerodynamic Vehicle Design was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame.
In response to the energy crisis of the mid-1970s, a team of researchers at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California began studying ways to apply space related technology to energy conservation on earth. They focused on the volume of air displaced by large trucks traveling on highways, which causes a large amount of drag on the vehicle, reducing fuel efficiency. The team found that by rounding the edges of a truck, and adding an aerodynamic fairing to its cab, air would pass more efficiently around the vehicle, reducing drag by more than fifty percent and increasing fuel efficiency by twenty percent. For a typical truck traveling 100,000 miles annually, this could save some six thousand gallons of fuel every year.
To publicly disseminate their findings so that industry could benefit from the study's findings, NASA teamed with the AIAA Journal of Energy to publish the results in a series of technical reports beginning in 1977. These reports resulted in the technology being widely adopted by the trucking industry, and now aerodynamic fairings are common on trucks worldwide.
AIAA published the Journal of Energy from 1977 to 1983 as a response to America's energy crisis. AIAA halted the journal's publication in 1983, as government funding of energy research and development programs plummeted after oil supplies became plentiful again. Its contents are available online at www.aiaa.org/search.
Founded in 1983, the Space Foundation is an international nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that advances space-related endeavors to inspire and enable human progress. It founded the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1988 in cooperation with NASA, to increase public awareness of the benefits resulting from space exploration programs, and to encourage further innovation. To date, the Space Foundation has inducted 59 technologies as well as honoring the organizations and individuals who have transformed space technology into commercial products that improve the quality of life for all humanity.
AIAA advances the state of aerospace science, engineering, and technological leadership. Headquartered in suburban Washington, D.C., the Institute serves over 35,000 members in 65 regional sections and 79 countries. AIAA membership is drawn from all levels of industry, academia, private research organizations, and government. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org.
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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