In this paper the computed flow and performance characteristics at low angle-of-attack (AOA) of an integrated diverterless supersonic inlet (DSI) are presented. The subsonic characteristics are evaluated at M∞ = 0·8 while the supersonic characteristics are evaluated at M∞= 1·7, which is near the design Mach number for the intake. In addition to the external flow features, the internal intake duct flow behaviour is also evaluated. The results of this study indicate effective boundary layer diversion due to the ‘bump’ compression surface in both subsonic and supersonic regimes. At M∞ = 1·7, the shockwave structure (oblique/normal shockwave) on the ‘bump’ compression surface and intake inlet is satisfactory at design (critical) mass flow rate. The intake duct flow behaviour at subsonic and supersonic conditions is generally consistent with ‘Y’ shaped intake duct of the present configuration. The secondary flow structure inside the duct has been effectively captured by present computations. The computed intake total pressure recovery at M∞ = 1·7 exhibits higher-than-conventional behaviour at low mass flow ratios, which is attributed to unique inlet design. Overall computed subsonic and supersonic total pressure recovery characteristics are satisfactory under the evaluated conditions and are also in agreement with wind tunnel test data.

With the ever-increasing pressure for cleaner and more fuel efficient aero engines, gas turbine manufacturers are faced with a big challenge which they are bound to accept and act upon. The path from current high bypass ratio (BPR) engines to ultra high BPR engines via geared turbo fans will enable a significant reduction in SFC and CO2 emissions. However, in order to reach the emission levels set by the advisory council for aeronautics research in Europe (ACARE), the introduction of more complex cycles that can operate at higher thermal efficiencies is required. Studies have shown that one possibility of achieving higher core efficiencies and hence lower SFC is through the use of an intercooled recuperated (ICR) core. The concept engine, expected to enter into service around 2020, will make use of a conventional fin plate heat exchangers (HEX) for the intercooler and a tube type HEX as the recuperator. Although the introduction of these two components promises a significant reduction in SFC levels, they will give also rise to higher engine complexity, pressure losses and additional weight. Thus, the performance of the engine relies not only on the behaviour of the usual gas turbine components, but will be heavily dependent on the two heat exchangers. This paper seeks to introduce a heat pipe heat exchanger (HPHEX) as alternative designs for the intercooler and the recuperator. The proposed HPHEX designs for application in an ICR aero engine take advantage of the convenience of the geometry of miniature heat pipes to provide a reduction in pressure losses and weight when compared to conventional HEX. The proposed HPHEX intercooler design eliminates any ducting to and from the intercooler, offering up to 32% reduction in hot pressure losses, 34% reduction in cold pressure losses and over 41% reduction in intercooler weight. On the other hand the proposed HPHEX recuperator design can offer 6% improvement in performance, while offering 36% reduction in cold pressure losses, up to 80% reduction in hot pressure losses and over 31% reduction in weight. An ICR using HPHEX for the intercooler and recueprator may offer up to 2·5% increase in net thrust, while still offering 3% reduction in SFC and up to 7·7% reduction in NOX severity parameter, when compared to the ICR using conventional HEX.

Occurrence of transient starting and stopping loads during tests at high Mach numbers is one of the major problems in intermittent blowdown wind tunnels. It is believed that in order to overcome this problem, the wind tunnel could be started at a low Mach number and low stagnation pressure; the desired high Mach number condition could be reached by continuously changing the nozzle contour while synchronously increasing the stagnation pressure. After completing the tests, the nozzle could be brought back to the initial low Mach number accompanied by synchronous decrease in the stagnation pressure. In such a scenario, it is important to ensure that the pressure regulating valve (PRV) of the wind tunnel delivers and maintains a specified minimum stagnation pressure at any Mach number, so that supersonic breakdown of the test section flow does not occur. In this paper, the problem is formulated based on quasi-steady one-dimensional isentropic equations and numerically solved to predict the time histories of settling chamber pressure and storage tank pressure for a given trajectory of the opening of the PRV, as the Mach number is changed from Mach 1 to 4·0 continuously in four seconds and vice versa. The effects of rate of change of PRV open area and rate of change of Mach number on the stagnation pressure characteristics in the settling chamber and storage tank are predicted. The measured trajectories of the PRV in experiments in the NAL 0·6m transonic wind tunnel are used as input to the prediction program to validate the methodology. Predictions indicate that when the nozzle throat is changed from Mach 1 to 4 in four seconds, the settling chamber stagnation pressure rapidly builds up and approaches the pressure in the storage tank. Predictions show an alarming rise in free stream dynamic pressure during transition from Mach 1 to 4 and vice versa, which needs to be verified through measurements.

A re-cooled cycle has been proposed for a regeneratively cooled scramjet to reduce the hydrogen fuel flow for cooling. Upon the completion of the first cooling, fuel can be used for secondary cooling by transferring the enthalpy from fuel to work. Fuel heat sink (cooling capacity) is thus repeatedly used and fuel heat sink is indirectly increased. Instead of carrying excess fuel for cooling or seeking for any new coolant, the cooling fuel flow is reduced, and fuel onboard is adequate to satisfy the cooling requirement for the whole hypersonic vehicle. A performance model considering flow and heat transfer is build. A model sensitivity study of inlet temperature and pressure reveals that, for given exterior heating condition and cooling panel size, fuel heat sink can be obviously increased at moderate inlet temperature and pressure. Simultaneously the low-temperature heat transfer deterioration and Mach number constrains can also be avoided.

The HART II test of 2001 provided a significant and comprehensive database of rotor loads, blade motion, blade pressure distribution, acoustic signature and flow field data. A sub-set of these were released for public access worldwide and an International HART II Workshop was established in 2005. This Workshop, open to the international rotorcraft community, has been held since then at both the AHS Annual Forum as well as the European Rotorcraft Forum. Following the requests of participants, the HART II International Workshop database has been undergoing continuous development. This paper describes the current content and status of the data and the documentation material provided within the workshop database.

This work aims at improving the resilience and damage tolerant properties of CFRP by using cork, which is a natural material with good energy absorption capacity and thermal insulating and vibration damping characteristics. Two types of materials were considered: a sandwich formed by carbon-epoxy facesheets with a cork-epoxy core and a carbon-epoxy laminate with embedded cork granulates. The damage tolerant properties were evaluated by low velocity impact tests according to the type of material. Additionally, this work intends to evaluate the feasibility of using a cork agglomerate combined with CFRP in a sandwich configuration in order to improve the aeroelastic properties of certain types of aerospace components aiming at preventing the occurrence of damage due to flutter. A computational analysis was used to determine the critical flutter speed of a cork based sandwich plate and other conventional materials, such as aluminium alloy and CFRP.

Results are clear about the benefits of using cork based composites either by improving the damage tolerant properties under impact loading or by extending the flight envelope without weight penalty by increasing the flutter critical speed.

In industry, there is an ever-increasing requirement not only to design high performance new products but also to deliver them at lower cost and in shorter time. To meet these demanding engineering challenges, it is not sufficient to treat the different disciplines involved in a product design in isolation; rather they must be considered together as an integrated system that reflects the dependencies and interactions of the different disciplines. The design process must be automated to meet the stringent design time-lines. In spite of promising forays for over a decade, automatic design optimisation (ADO) and multidisciplinary optimisation (MDO) has not been widely adapted by the Turbomachinery design practitioners. This presentation will explore some of the technical and nontechnical barriers such as cultural and organisational issues that must be addressed if ADO/MDO is to be used routinely in industry. Some recent, successful application of automatic optimisation is also reported herein.

This note presents an application of algebraic methods to derive exact conditions for certain nonlinear flight dynamical systems to exhibit stability and bifurcation. The roll-coupling flight model is taken as an example to show the feasibility of algebraic analysis. Some of the previous stability and bifurcation results obtained using numerical analysis for this model are confirmed.

This paper presents a feasibility study to integrate a developed lift system (an annular wing wrapped around a centrifugal flow generator) into a Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing V/STOL aircraft. Different physical scales, from micro aerial vehicle to a Harrier Jump Jet scale, for a variety of propulsion systems are explored. The system has shown to be viable for several classes of aircraft but with better performance offered by a micro-aerial-vehicle (~40g) and a large vehicle (~10,000kg) with a turbofan engine, albeit in both cases with apparently worse performance than is offered by current technologies. The wingform does not appear to be feasible in the light aircraft scale whilst using internal combustion engines.

This paper concerns aircraft system identification and, in particular, the process of aerodynamic model structure determination. Its application to experimental data from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is also described. The procedure can be particularly useful for determining an aerodynamic model for aircraft with unconventional airframe configurations, which some unmanned aircraft tend to have. Two model structure determination techniques are outlined. The first is the well-established stepwise regression method, while the second is an adaptation of an existing frequency response approach which instead utilises maximum likelihood estimation. Example applications of the methods are presented for two data sources. The first is a set of UAV flight test data and the second is data recorded from dynamic wind tunnel tests on a UAV configuration. For both examples, the model structures determined using stepwise regression and maximum likelihood analysis matched one another, suggesting that the maximum likelihood approach and the chosen thresholds for its statistical metrics were reliable for the data being analysed.

Vision-based control is being aggressively pursued for autonomous systems. Such control is particularly valuable for path planning to achieve mission objectives like target tracking and obstacle avoidance. This paper presents a multi-rate strategy that utilises a fast-rate optic flow approach and a slow-rate scene reconstruction approach. The vehicle uses scene reconstruction to generate an accurate map for path planning; however, optic flow is used to avoid obstacles while the scene reconstruction is computed. A switch element is used in the feedback path to determine whether information relating to the reconstructed map or the optical flow should be used for navigation. The resulting controller is able to generate flight trajectories and perform obstacle avoidance within a computational cost which is reasonable given performance demands and computational resources on a wide range of aircraft. A simulation demonstrates the performance of an aircraft that uses the multi-rate controller to avoid an obstacle which is only observed after a turn. Essentially, the fast-rate optic flow indicates the presence of the obstacle during the time that slow-rate scene reconstruction is being performed. The resulting flight path is able to follow mission objectives and avoid a collision.

Optimisation of complex systems frequently requires evaluating a computationally expensive high-fidelity function to estimate a system metric of interest. Although design sensitivities may be available through either direct or adjoint methods, the use of formal optimisation methods may remain too costly. Incorporating low-fidelity performance estimates can substantially reduce the cost of the high-fidelity optimisation. In this paper we present a provably convergent multifidelity optimisation method that uses Cokriging Bayesian model calibration and first-order consistent trust regions. The technique is compared with a single-fidelity sequential quadratic programming method and a conventional first-order trust-region method on both a two-dimensional structural optimisation and an aerofoil design problem. In both problems adjoint formulations are used to provide inexpensive sensitivity information.

As a consequence of its aerodynamic lift, each aircraft is generating wake vortices that can become a serious hazard for the succeeding aircraft and in the worst case lead to loss of control. Separation standards were introduced to prevent dangerous wake encounters that have proven sufficiently safe but also very conservative, thus limiting airspace and airport capacity.

The objective of contemporary wake vortex research is regaining capacity in favourable atmospheric conditions, at the same time preserving or even improving the current safety level. The wake vortex advisory systems developed for this purpose are nearing experimental implementation and all include a forecasting component and additional online detection sensors, with both elements having their benefits and limitations.

The wake vortex research objectives at the Institute of Flight Guidance (IFF) of the Technische Universitaet Braunschweig focus on a close coupling approach between model predictions and sensor measurements. Using the complementary capabilities of each, the aim of improved performance of the overall system shall be reached.

After giving a short overview on the wake vortex phenomenon and current approaches to wake vortex alerting and advisory systems, this paper will introduce the fusion concept. The benefits of this approach will be demonstrated by means of examples. An outlook on further development and envisaged advanced implementation concepts will be given.

Classic flight control systems are still widely used in the industry because of acquired experience and good understanding of their structure. Nevertheless, with more stringent constraints, it becomes difficult to easily fulfil all the criteria with these classic control laws. On the other hand, modern methods can handle many constraints but fail to produce low order controllers. The following methodology proposed in this paper addresses both classic and modern flight control issues, to offer a solution that leverages the strengths of both approaches. First, an H∞ synthesis is performed in order to get controllers which satisfy handling qualities and are robust with respect to mass and centre of gravity variations. These controllers are then reduced and structured by using robust modal control techniques. In conclusion, a self-scheduling technique is described that will schedule these controllers over the entire flight envelope.

This paper presents the design and implementation of automatic flight controllers for a fixed-wing unmanned air vehicle (UAV) by using a linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) control approach. The LQG design is able to retain the guaranteed closed-loop stability of the linear-quadratic regulator (LQR) while having incomplete state measurement. Instead of feeding back the actual states to form the control law, the estimated states provided by a separately designed optimal observer, i.e. the Kalman filter are used. The automatic flight controllers that include outer-loop controls are constructed based on two independent LQG regulators which govern the longitudinal and lateral dynamics of the UAV respectively. The resulting controllers are structurally simple and thus efficient enough to be easily realized with limited onboard computing resource. In this paper, the design of the LQG controllers is described while the navigation and guidance algorithm based on Global Positioning System (GPS) data is also outlined. In order to validate the performance of the automatic flight control system, a series of flight tests have been conducted. Significant results are presented and discussed in detail. Overall, the flight-test results show that it is highly feasible and effective to apply the computationally efficient LQG controllers on a fixed-wing UAV system with a relatively simple onboard system. On the other hand, a fully automatic 44km cross-sea flight demonstration was successfully conducted using the LQG-based flight controllers. Detailed description regarding the event and some significant flight data are given.

With changes in the availability and quality of existing aviation fuels anticipated in the next 30 years it is timely to assess how changes in fuel properties would affect the range payload performance of aircraft. The effects on range and payload of a wide range of candidate fuels for aviation are investigated, including changes to the blends of conventional hydrocarbon fuels. Lighter fuels tend to be more desirable for commercial flights, where the flight is as close to the maximum payload as possible. Flights favouring range over payload are better suited by a more dense fuel. The hydrocarbon blends suggest for each aircraft, an optimum fuel may exist for the maximum payload and allowing the maximum range. Specific flight plans below the maximum range of the aircraft may be met with a lower specific energy fuel.

An integrated parametric model involving the design of propulsion system, airframe and flight mission is presented. Based hereon, the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission characteristics of advanced direct-drive turbofan and open rotor powered aircraft are analysed against pertinent aircraft and propulsion system design parameters. In addition, initial concept-specific trend statements on nitrogen oxides (NOx) as well as propulsor noise emission characteristics are derived. The obtained results contribute to a better understanding of more appropriate aircraft design attributes for advanced system architectures.

This research aims to develop a method which predicts the task demand load as experienced by pilots while flying an area navigation (RNAV) approach. First, this will yield insight in which aspects of an approach actually influence pilot task demand load. And second, during the design of approaches this method can be used to rapidly evaluate a potential approach and to ‘optimise’ an approach with respect to pilot task demand load. During previous research, focusing on approaches flown with a B747, a list of factors that influence pilot task demand load has been obtained, as well as a method to keep pilot task demand load at an acceptable level. The method consists of seven guidelines to be adhered to during approach design. This paper shows that the list of factors and the method do not only apply to a B747 aircraft but are generally applicable to other aircraft as well. This is underpinned by results from both flight simulator tests and real flight tests with TU Delft’s Cessna Citation laboratory aircraft. Additionally, it is shown that there are no discrepancies between the list of factors influencing pilot task demand load resulting from the flight simulator tests and the list of factors resulting from the real flight tests.

The paper presents the estimation of longitudinal aerodynamic parameters from simulated as well as real flight data using an unsteady downwash model. The task of parameter estimation was accomplished using the Maximum Likelihood (ML) method in the frequency domain for the Hansa-3 aircraft. The presented work pertains to the aircraft having a semi-sweptback wing configuration, however, the work reported earlier considered a rectangular wing configuration. A simple vortex system was used to model downwash effects in the longitudinal equations of motion. First, it was established that the indicial lift function had a minor or negligible influence on aircraft motion and on the estimated aerodynamic parameters using simulated data for the configuration of Hansa-3 aircraft. Next, two parameter extraction algorithms were used for parameter estimation using simulated data (with unsteadiness only in downwash) and real flight data (Hansa-3 aircraft). The first algorithm included unsteadiness only in downwash while the second neglected all the unsteady effects. It was observed from the results obtained that if unsteady effects were omitted from the parameter estimation algorithm, the extracted parameters included the effects of unsteady aerodynamics. Therefore, application of the extraction algorithm in the two modes provides a convenient means of separating steady-state and acceleration derivatives.