Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Fan Blade Challenges

Urban Air Mobility has captured the interest of the public and the composites industry. Current forecasts for UAM passenger pricing assume low operating costs based on electric propulsion and powertrain simplicity (relative to helicopters), and low vehicle costs based on mass production build rates ranging from 1000 to 10,000 units per year. With most of the 300 startups worldwide embracing distributed propulsion systems employing anywhere from 10 to 30 propellers (or fan blades) per vehicle, the composites industry is faced with the challenge of figuring out how to build aerospace-quality eVTOL fan blades in very large quantities, perhaps up to hundreds of thousands of units per year.
This presentation will provide a brief overview of some of the Engineering, Manufacturing and Certification considerations associated with UAM fan blade production, with a focus on the trade-offs of various manufacturing approaches.