Volume 31, Issue 2

The exhaust characteristics related to impulse was investigated in a pulse detonation rocket engine (PDRE) by tunable diode laser absorption sensing system. The instantaneous parameters of temperature, velocity and pressure were obtained for exhaust at engine exit. Analysis on impulse characteristics based on control volume of the PDRE was conducted for a single operation circle with experimental results. It was concluded that the impulse (3.26 N·s) achieved by exhaust measurements was in agreement with that (3.09 N·s) by a load cell. The impulse caused by exhaust momentum experienced an extremely sharp ascending, a steep rising and a slow increment in sequence. The exhausts during the sharp ascending and steep rising were under expansion with high mass weighted average temperature (>1266 K), so there was a possible promotion for exhausts utilizing.

The integrated propulsive flowpath of scramjet configuration was preliminarily designed and analyzed in this paper. The flow-fields characteristics and performance of the designed two-dimensional integrated propulsive flowpath were numerically calculated under various equivalent fuel-air ratio conditions, using computational fluid dynamics methods. The calculation results were then compared with the experimental data on some typical conditions, and the flow-field and performance of the integrated scramjet flowpath with different equivalent fuel-air ratios were analyzed and discussed in detail. The investigation results from these efforts showed that: (1) the inlet function was beyond disturbances by combustion induced shock wave and pressure fluctuations under the equivalent fuel-air ratio condition of 1.0, which well satisfied the design requirements; (2) with the increasing equivalent fuel-air ratio, the combustion intensity in the combustor was significantly enhanced, resulting in an increasing net-thrust of the propulsive flowpath.

This paper presents the experimental results on the flow characteristics of a suddenly expanded flow from subsonic and sonic nozzles. The present study employs passive control in the form of a rib to investigate the base pressure for the enlarged duct. The nozzle pressure ratio (NPR) was varied from 1 to 7. The length to diameter ratio of the enlarged duct was varied from 0.5D to 6D. The aspect ratio of the rib was varied from 0.45 to 1.25. The experimental results showed that the base pressure was strongly influenced by the aspect ratio of the rib at a given L/D ratio. For L/D = 0.5, NPR 3 was found to be critical as seen from the increasing trend in base pressure with NPR. The present study explicitly reveals that, the base pressure in a suddenly expanded axi-symmetric duct can be controlled by employing a rib of appropriate aspect ratio as a passive control device.

Failure mode, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) and Fault tree analysis (FTA) are powerful tools to evaluate reliability of systems. Although single failure mode issue can be efficiently addressed by traditional FMECA, multiple failure modes and component correlations in complex systems cannot be effectively evaluated. In addition, correlated variables and parameters are often assumed to be precisely known in quantitative analysis. In fact, due to the lack of information, epistemic uncertainty commonly exists in engineering design. To solve these problems, the advantages of FMECA, FTA, fuzzy theory, and Copula theory are integrated into a unified hybrid method called fuzzy probability weighted geometric mean (FPWGM) risk priority number (RPN) method. The epistemic uncertainty of risk variables and parameters are characterized by fuzzy number to obtain fuzzy weighted geometric mean (FWGM) RPN for single failure mode. Multiple failure modes are connected using minimum cut sets (MCS), and Boolean logic is used to combine fuzzy risk priority number (FRPN) of each MCS. Moreover, Copula theory is applied to analyze the correlation of multiple failure modes in order to derive the failure probabilities of each MCS. Compared to the case where dependency among multiple failure modes is not considered, the Copula modeling approach eliminates the error of reliability analysis. Furthermore, for purpose of quantitative analysis, probabilities importance weight from failure probabilities are assigned to FWGM RPN to reassess the risk priority, which generalize the definition of probability weight and FRPN, resulting in a more accurate estimation than that of the traditional models. Finally, a basic fatigue analysis case drawn from turbine and compressor blades in aeroengine is used to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the presented method. The result provides some important insights on fatigue reliability analysis and risk priority assessment of structural system under failure correlations.

In order to understand the formation process of condensation trails (contrails), the flow in the near field of an aircraft engine jet is studied by using the three-dimensional Large Eddy Simulation technique. The configuration consists of a hot round jet laden with soot particles. The particles are tracked using the Lagrangian approach, and their growth is calculated by a microphysics water vapour deposition model. A series of simulations are performed at a realistic Reynolds number (Re = 3.2 · 10 6 ) for two different jet Mach numbers: quasi-incompressible jet flow (M = 0.2) and compressible jet flow (M = 1). Whatever the Mach number used the ice crystals first appear at the edges of the jet where the hot and moist flow mixes with the cold and dry ambient air. Both the thermal transfers and the mass coupling, which are more significant for the quasi-incompressible jet flow, control the growth process.

This paper presents the results of high-speed co-flow jets from orifices with two annular gaps tested with a single feed system. The co-flow models consist of a primary orifice of 10 mm diameter (D) surrounded by 12 secondary orifices of 0.3D diameter each, positioned in an annular fashion around the primary orifice. The annular gap between the edge of primary orifice and the secondary orifices were 0.15D and 0.45D. The co-flow is found to reduce the potential core of the primary jet at Mach numbers 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0. The nozzle pressure ratios corresponding to Mach numbers 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 are 1.02, 1.12, 1.28, 1.52 and 1.89, respectively. The 0.45D annular gap is found to be more efficient in promoting the mixing of the primary jet.

This paper reports results of experimental investigations on a linear cascade of axial compressor blades. Experiments were conducted in an open circuit subsonic wind tunnel of Aerodynamics Research Laboratory of the Iran University of Science and Technology. Different Reynolds numbers based on the blade chord length were examined, ranging from 80,000 to 500,000. Flow incidences were changed between −8 to +8 degrees with 2 degrees intervals. Freestream turbulence intensity was changed between 1.25 to 4 percent corresponding to different mesh screens mounted upstream of the test model. All the above flow conditions provided to establish various flow regimes, in terms of fully laminar and transitional flows, around the blades. At a specified range of Reynolds numbers laminar separation bubble/bubbles occurred over the blade solid walls. Surface pressure distributions were measured utilizing a computerized data acquisition system. Fluctuating velocities were also measured at various positions around the separation bubble zone, using hot film anemometry. Surface oil flow visualization was carried out for some selected flow conditions. Experimental results were used to study boundary layer characteristics and to determine variations of loss coefficient with each of Reynolds number, flow incidence and turbulence intensity parameters for the test model.

The oil film thickness in aero-engine bearing chamber influences the heat transfer capacity of the bearing chamber wall, so measuring oil film thickness accuspeedly is essential to the design and thermal analysis of lubricating oil system. In this paper, software and hardware of an ultrasonic measurement system based on pulse echo technique, which measures the oil film thickness in bearing chamber, are established. The hardware system mainly consists of signal acquisition card, probe, delay block and the corresponding cables. Functions as measurement parameter setup, real-time display of measured waveforms, post-processing and so on are included in the measurement software. Finally, the oil film thickness of the wall is measured with the measurement system developed. Signal quality of the dynamic measurement is analyzed. Comparison and analysis of different oil film thickness under different rotation rates are conducted.

Fatigue lifetime assessment for aircraft engine discs is an important issue for the operation and health management of aircraft engines. Due to the lack of field test data, traditional methods can hardly meet the requirements of fatigue lifetime assessment of aircraft engine discs. By combining a multi-source information fusion method with a Bayesian inference technique, this paper develops a practical approach for fatigue lifetime assessment of aircraft engine discs. Subjective information and historical data are combined coherently with the sparse test data to generate a credible fatigue lifetime assessment of aircraft engine discs. Methods for quantifying subjective information, checking different experts' information, and fusing multiple prior distributions are presented to facilitate the implementation of fatigue lifetime assessment. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the procedures and the implication of the proposed method.

A full authority digital electronic controller (FADEC) equipped with a full authority hydro-mechanical backup controller (FAHMBC) is adopted as the nozzle throat area control system (NTACS) of a turbofan aero engine. In order to ensure the switching reliability of the main/backup controller, the nozzle throat area control switching valve was improved from three-way convex desktop slide valve to six-way convex desktop slide valve. Simulation results show that, if malfunctions of FAEDC occur and abnormal signals are outputted from FADEC, NTACS will be seriously influenced by the main/backup controller switching in several working states, while NTACS will not be influenced by using the improved nozzle throat area control switching valve, thus the controller switching process will become safer and smoother and the working reliability of this turbofan aero engine is improved by the controller switching device improvement.

This paper is to study the cavitating characteristics in a low specific speed centrifugal pump with gap structure impeller experimentally and numerically. A scalable DES numerical method is proposed and developed by introducing the von Karman scale instead of the local grid scale, which can switch at the RANS and LES region interface smoothly and reasonably. The SDES method can detect and grasp unsteady scale flow structures, which were proved by the flow around a triangular prism and the cavitation flow in a centrifugal pump. Through numerical and experimental research, it's shown that the simulated results match qualitatively with tested cavitation performances and visualization patterns, and we can conclude that the gap structure impeller has a superior feature of cavitation suppression. Its mechanism may be the guiding flow feature of the small vice blade and the pressure auto-balance effect of the gap tunnel.