Volume 31, Issue 4

The jet engine is the prime flight controller in post-stall flight domains where conventional flight control fails, or when the engine prevents catastrophes in training, combat, loss of all airframe hydraulics (the engine retains its own hydraulics), loss of one engine, pilot errors, icing on the wings, landing gear and runway issues in takeoff and landing and in bad-whether recoveries. The scientific term for this revolutionary technology is “jet-steering”, and in engineering practice – “thrust vectoring”, or “TV”. Jet-Steering in advanced fighter aircraft designs is integrated with stealth technology. The resulting classified Thrust-Vectoring-Stealth (“TVS”) technology has generated a second jet-revolution by which all Air-&-Sea-Propulsion Science and R&D are now being reassessed. Classified F-22, X-47B/C and RQ-180 TVS-vehicles stand at the front of this revolution. But recent transfers of such sensitive technologies to South Korea and Japan [1–5], have raised various fundamental issues that are evaluated by this editorial-review. One, and perhaps a key conclusion presented here, means that both South Korea and Japan may have missed one of their air-&-sea defenses: To develop and field low-cost unmanned fleets of jet-drones, some for use with expensive, TVS-fighter aircraft in highly congested areas. In turn, the U.S., EU, Russia and China , are currently developing such fleets at various TVS levels and sizes. China, for instance, operates at least 15,000 drones (“UAVs”) by 2014 in the civilian sector alone. All Chinese drones have been developed by at least 230 developers/manufacturers [1–16]. Mobile telecommunication of safe links between flyers and combat drones (“UCAVs”) at increasingly deep penetrations into remote, congested areas, can gradually be purchased-developed-deployed and then operated by extant cader of tens of thousands “National Champion Flyers” who have already mastered the operation of mini-drones in free-to-all sport clubs under national competions and Awards. [Rule-13]. We also provide 26 references [17–43] to a different, unclassified technology that enhances TV-induced flight safety for passenger jets, turboprops and helicopters . It is based on patented stowed-away/emergency-deployed TV-kits added to fixed-configuration, subsonic exhaust nozzles of low thrust-to-weight ratio vehicles. Expected benefits include anti-terror recoveries from emergencies, like forced landing on unprepared runways or highways, or recoveries from all airframe-hydraulics-outs, asymmetric ice on wings, landing gear catastrophes, and recoveries from pilot errors and bad-whether incidents [Rule 9(7)]. Other TV technologies involve preventing catastrophes in speed and patrol boats, racing and regular cars/SUVs, buses and trucks. [Rule 9(8)] and faster helicopters [Rule 9(10)].

The volute of a radial inflow turbine has to be designed to ensure that the desired rotor inlet conditions like absolute Mach number, flow angle etc. are attained. For the reasonable performance of vaneless volute turbine care has to be taken for reduction in losses at an appropriate flow angle at the rotor inlet, in the direction of volute, whose function is to convert gas energy into kinetic energy and direct the flow towards the rotor inlet at an appropriate flow angle with reduced losses. In literature it was found that the incompressible approaches failed to provide free vortex and uniform flow at rotor inlet for compressible flow regimes. So, this paper describes a non-dimensional design procedure for a vaneless turbine volute for compressible flow regime and investigates design parameters, such as the distribution of area ratio and radius ratio as a function of azimuth angle. The nondimensional design is converted in dimensional form for three different volute cross sections. A commercial computational fluid dynamics code is used to develop numerical models of three different volute cross sections. From the numerical models, losses generation in the different volutes are identified and compared. The maximum pressure loss coefficient for Trapezoidal cross section is 0.1075, for Bezier-trapezoidal cross section is 0.0677 and for circular cross section is 0.0438 near tongue region, which suggested that the circular cross section will give a better efficiency than other types of volute cross sections.

This paper focuses on the noise reduction benefits of stator lean effect for rotor-stator interaction. The compressor with 3 blade lean angle of downstream stator was investigated by experimental and numerical study. The noise spectra of the acoustic measurement were obtained by the outside noise test. And the tone noise was extracted from the total noise sound pressure level (SPL). The unsteady loading of the stators' blade surface were also obtained. The pressure fluctuation amplitude was extracted from the numerical study, and the phase distribution of the wake presented the detail distribution of the wake phase. The numerical study shows that lean positive has less unsteady loading than negative, and lean positive case has the maximum phase lag.

In this work, a correlation between propellant burning rate and strain was established. In order to investigate the effects of strain and pressure, and to measure burning rate of composite propellants, a novel apparatus was designed and prepared. Burning rates of three formula composite propellants under different pressures and strains were measured using such device. Based on the measurements, a model for the analysis on the experimental results was proposed. It was demonstrated that the model corresponded with the experimental data if the propellant samples were under tensile strain increasing from 0 to 20%. Burning rate ratio and tensile strain obeyed the quadratic relationship, burning rate increased with strain, but there was no mutation in less than 20% deformation. Furthermore, burning rate ratio of composite propellants which had low Poisson ratio increased fast as tensile strain decreased. And the less binder component of composite propellants, the burning ratio changed more significantly under a given strain state. In addition, as the exposed area increased, the burning rate ratio became larger.

The chordwise based Sweep-Dihedral Coordinates (SDC) and axial-tangential based Axial Sweep-Lean Coordinates (ASLC) are the two widely used coordinates systems for blade 3D design. In order to clarify the relationships between them, some numerical simulations were conducted in a simplified planar cascade model. The cascade model has a large aspect ratio of 3.0 and free-slip endwalls, which are used to minimize the endwall flow effects. The simulation results of totally 9 cases with different blade 3D design schemes, including sweep, dihedral, axial sweep and lean, were analyzed. Firstly, the effects of each type of blade 3D designs were summarized. And then, based on the rule of vector decomposition in an orthogonal coordinates, the effects of blade axial sweep and lean in ASLC were deduced from the effects of blade sweep and dihedral in SDC. It was found that forward/backward axial sweep is combined by positive/negative dihedral and forward/backward sweep, which have opposite trends of effects, resulting in a counterbalance phenomenon. Moreover, positive/negative lean is combined by positive/negative dihedral and forward/backward sweep, which have the same trends of effects, resulting in a superposition effect.

Fully integrated numerical simulations were performed for a ready-made central strut-based rocket-based combined-cycle (RBCC) engine operating in ejector mode, and the applicability of using a boundary layer bleed in the RBCC inlet designed for supersonic speeds was investigated in detail. The operational mechanism of the boundary layer bleed and its effects on the RBCC inlet and the engine under different off-design conditions in ejector mode were determined. The boundary layer bleed played different roles in the RBCC inlet for different flight regimes. When the RBCC engine took off, some air was entrained into the inlet through the bleed block, thereby inducing significant flow separation and a low-speed vortex, which deteriorated the inner flow and reduced the entraining air mass flow rate: thus, the total pressure loss increased and extra drag was exerted on the inlet. In the low subsonic regime, the bleed block had almost no impact on the RBCC engine and its inlet. However, as the RBCC engine accelerated into a high subsonic flight regime, the boundary layer bleed had a clearly positive effect, comprehensively improving the performance of the RBCC inlet. A boundary layer bleed operation strategy for the RBCC inlet in ejector mode was also developed in this study.

Experimental and numerical investigations of flow field in a film-cooled turbine model under stationary and rotating conditions in a low-speed wind tunnel are conducted. The effects of different blowing ratios (M = 1.5, 2) on the flow field are studied. Results revealed a secondary flow near the blade surface in the wake region behind the jet hole. Compared with the stationary turbine, there exists centrifugal force and Coriolis force in the flow field of the rotating turbine, and these forces cause changes in the flow field in the rotating turbine. The effect of rotation on the flow field and film cooling effectiveness in the Y-Z planes on the pressure side is stronger than on the suction side, and results in lower film cooling effectiveness on the pressure surface of the rotating turbine blade compared with the stationary turbine. As the blowing ratio increases, the secondary flow in the wake region will become stronger, thereby enlarging the range of the wake.

The nonlinear model of aero-engine was linearized at multiple operation points by using frequency response method. The validation results indicate high accuracy of static and dynamic characteristics of the linear models. The improved PID tuning method of frequency-domain model matching was proposed with the system stability condition considered. The proposed method was applied to the design of PID controller of the high pressure rotor speed control in the flight envelope, and the control effects were evaluated by the nonlinear model. Simulation results show that the system had quick dynamic response with zero overshoot and zero steadystate error. Furthermore, a PID-fuzzy switching control scheme for aero-engine was designed, and the fuzzy switching system stability was proved. Simulations were studied to validate the applicability of the multiple PIDs fuzzy switching controller for aero-engine with wide range dynamics.