Aeronautical Research Activities For Civil Transport in JAXA

One of the goals of JAXA’s Aviation Program Group (APG) is to develop the cutting-edge technologies and make them available in the development of competitive aircraft in the world market. To achieve this, JAXA launched a research project in 2003 which covers wide variety of aeronautical science and technology: computational fluid dynamics (CFD), advanced optical measuring methods in wind tunnel test, aero-acoustic analysis (computational aero-acoustics, CAA) to reduce airframe noise, computational tool to analyze transonic flutter behavior, analysis and test of crashworthiness, composite materials and structures, and control systems. This article describes JAXA’s efforts conducted in the project in some details. Some of these activities have been contributing to the development of MRJ, the first jet passenger aircraft under development in Japan.