Born: United States of America
Primarily active in: United States of America

From Leadership Profile: Vertiflite September/October 2024
Prof. Edward Smith, Director, Vertical Lift Center of Excellence, The Pennsylvania State University
As the founding director of the Penn State University (PSU) Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE), Prof. Ed Smith remains a catalyst for rotorcraft research. “My days are filled with teaching classes and participating in a wide range of collaborative research project meetings with students and other faculty. I also try to lead by example when it comes to the research projects I work on and the courses I teach. Vertical flight vehicles have always presented so many engineering challenges, we need all hands on deck when it comes to ensuring that they are capable, safe, simply breathtaking flying machines.”

The VLRCOE resides in the Penn State aerospace engineering department within the college of engineering. The director noted, “While there are comparable complex vehicle systems, such as nuclear submarines and space launch vehicles, the small packaging and number of moving parts per cubic foot makes modern rotorcraft a unique challenge — and an engineering marvel to be proud of.” Smith offered, “I have always been fascinated by moving parts and by advanced structures and materials. For rotary-wing aircraft, ‘dynamics’ opens a wide range of research. Our projects cover rotor systems, drive systems, airframe vibration reduction and interior noise control.”

Classroom teaching remains rewarding. Smith said, “I think the best thing you get out of that is that instantaneous feedback when the students’ interest is sparked and when they learn something. They also ask good questions. I have no problem telling the students, ‘I don’t know. Let me get back to you.’ That keeps us sharp. If students don’t ask questions, we don’t know what they’re learning.” About 100 first-year students a year take the PSU hands-on helicopters class, and 70 people each year complete the week-long rotary-wing technology short course. Smith will teach undergraduate classes in helicopter design and aerospace structures this fall. He was named a PSU Distinguished Professor earlier this year. The title is bestowed on professors who are leaders in their fields of research and who have demonstrated significant leadership with respect to teaching, service and research or creative activity.

The VLRCOE supports about 70 full-time graduate researchers. Smith noted, “Add to that about 15 undergraduate research assistants and 10 graduate students at partner universities working side-by-side with our teams.” Distinguished graduates include the current head of the rotor system branch at the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Aviation & Missile Center (AvMC), the chief engineer for advanced vertical flight at Boeing, and an academic instructor at the US Naval Test Pilot School. Smith added, “There’s a bunch of helicopter pilots — our engineers who became DoD Department of Defense] aviators — no general officers yet, but they’re still pretty young.”

Penn State Proud
Growing up in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, New York, Ed Smith found his interest in aviation early. “I built plastic models of all sorts — even some helicopters — and hung them all over my room and in the basement. I didn’t have the eyesight to fly for the military, so I decided aerospace engineering was the way to go.” Smith’s father, Martin, was a history teacher, guidance counselor and deputy head of vocational guidance for the New York City school system. “When it was time for college, my father’s colleagues in the NYC Board of Education were very positive about Penn State as an engineering school. It was a great choice, and the university and faculty have truly shaped much of my adult life.”

Smith received his undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from PSU in 1987. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Maryland (UMD) in 1990. Smith recalled, “UMD was selected after a campus tour — during a blizzard — where I saw great facilities and met at length with Professors Inderjit Chopra and Alfred Gessow.” Smith earned his doctorate in rotorcraft engineering from UMD in 1992. He conceded, “I did not want a career in academia. The only reason I’m here is because the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 when I was writing my thesis. There were no jobs in industry. The head of aerodynamics at a major helicopter company told me, ‘If you were my son, I’d say, “Go try at a university for a few years.”’”

Smith joined the PSU engineering faculty in 1992 as an assistant professor. “I knew Penn State. I had done my undergraduate there, and they had a history of doing rotorcraft research with Prof. Barney McCormick.” The PSU VLRCOE started in 1996 (see “The Product is the People,” Vertiflite, May/June 2024). “Our students are thoroughly trained and inspired to work in and contribute to the vertical flight community,” Smith said. “The questions we pose and answer through our research help educate the community at large and are documented and disseminated in many papers, theses and briefings.”

The VLRCOE has also been a continuing source of vertical lift talent. “My mom ran an employment agency,” Smith recalled. “Helping people get jobs and having a job you liked was pretty fundamental to us growing up. As a professor, I get to help the students get their careers going.”

Research Required
The Penn State VLRCOE conducts a range of research. “We are extensively integrated with our customers in industry and government,” said Prof. Smith. “Our monthly program update meetings, annual reviews and conference/workshops through the year ensure that we work on relevant topics.” Smith added, “Sometimes the government and companies do a very good job telling us what problems they face. They will suggest solutions they’d like us to explore, and they want a proposal on how we will go about the exploration and how much it will cost.”

Smith has investigated rotorcraft quieting technologies for almost 30 years. “The motivation for that is that the cabin noise inside military and commercial helicopters is extremely severe, like 115-dB rock concert severe.” Crews and passengers generally fight to communicate and often suffer hearing loss. The VLRCOE continues experimenting with acoustic black hole panel technology to channel acoustic wave vibration. According to Smith, “The key is to make it quiet and structurally strong and stiff. In a helicopter, the panel has to support a lot of aerodynamic and structural loads.” With funding from the Office of Naval Research, PSU students have designed, built and tested sound-deadening panels. A follow-on proposal builds a scale-model aircraft interior, and PSU hopes to acquire a retired EC135 cabin for interior noise and vibration studies. Smith noted that electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) “air taxis have the same problem. Cabin noise is going to be too loud, and passengers are not going to tolerate that. I think the eVTOL companies are recognizing this and reaching out with questions.”

Smith champions and helps focus the research conducted by other faculty and students in the VLRCOE. For example, with Penn State funding, Prof. Mark Miller runs a high-pressure wind tunnel capable of 35 times normal air pressure. According to Smith, “You can then test aerodynamic phenomenon at much smaller scale to replicate things like drag, Reynolds numbers. We’re pretty sure we’re going to be able to crank up the pressure in this tunnel and get very accurate drag and flow measures using very small, much less expensive models.”

Led by Prof. Joe Horn, PSU researchers received DoD funding and hardware donated by Bell to develop their six-degree-offreedom rotorcraft crew station simulator. “They are using it for development of flight controls to make eVTOL aircraft safer and easier to fly,” Smith explained. “They are also working with the high-speed rotorcraft program for the DoD. We have pilots come in from the Navy and industry to validate new flight control laws.” The simulator, along with other VLRCOE experimental and computational labs, recently moved into a new engineering building on the Penn State campus.

PSU Prof. Jose Palacios has done extensive rotor icing research with the adverse environment rotor test stand (AERTS), and Smith said, “Stay tuned for AERTS II coming online this year. Thirty-two feet (9.8 m) tall and powered by a 350-hp (260-kW) electric drive system, it is a sight to behold. It accommodates 20-ft (6.1-m) diameter rotors, and in addition to icing, it can do rain erosion testing.”

PSU researchers and partners study eVTOL enabling technologies. Working closely with Prof. Hans DeSmidt at the University of Tennessee and David Hall at PSU, Smith and his students analyze, design and test hybrid propulsion systems and advanced drivetrains, such as their quiet, high-reduction-ratio pericyclic transmission. Smith explained, “We’re trying to use systems engineering and optimization analysis to model electrical propulsion systems and aero performance and see how a hybrid-electric vehicle can buy its way into the fleet. He continued, “How much do you have to spend to make these aircraft safe and reliable and to operate them as frequently as you want to bring in money? We’re trying to do some benchtop testing to validate our models.”

According to Smith, “Our analytical and computational tools have improved considerably over the last several decades. It has been a systematic and incremental set of improvements capturing more physics-based aerodynamic mechanisms, advanced material behaviors and integrated control strategies. Experimental and flight validation is key to building confidence in new methods and identifying remaining limitations and unsolved engineering/operational mysteries.”

Smith concluded, “There isn’t a single silver bullet that can enable all the products our commercial and military customers need. I think loads management, interior noise reduction and crashworthiness of eVTOL and related vehicles need timely investment. The same is true for advanced high-speed and longrange and dedicated logistics support configurations — both for autonomous and piloted vehicles. There are still opportunities for improved propulsion systems and lighter drive systems, and we still cannot generally fly safely in all weather conditions. Many new technologies can also be brought to bear on reducing the heavy maintenance-hour-per-flight-hour numbers associated with rotary-wing flight.”

Ed Smith joined the Vertical Flight Society (then American Helicopter Society) as an undergraduate in 1987. He recalled, “My first Forum was in Washington, DC, in May 1988. I have not missed a Forum since then and have met great new people and learned many new things each time. The products and technologies fascinate me, but the people/colleagues/ community really do make this sector of aerospace so enjoyable and rewarding.”