Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Bober, L. J..
The analytical approaches as well as the capabilities of three advanced analyses for predicting propeller aerodynamic performance are presented. It is shown that two of these analyses use a lifting line representation for the propeller blades, and the third uses a lifting surface representation.
Three advanced analyses for predicting aircraft propeller performance at high subsonic speeds are described. Two of these analyses use a lifting line representation for the propeller blades and vortex filaments for the blade wakes but differ in the details of the solution. The third analysis is a finite difference solution of the unsteady, three-dimensional Euler equations for the flow between adjacent blades. Analysis results are compared to data for a high speed propeller having 8 swept blades integrally designed with the spinner and nacelle. These analyses provide tools for the propeller designer ranging from a short running program for initial design studies to a very long running program for checking final configurations.
A combined experimental and analytical program has been conducted at the NASA Lewis Research Center, to investigate the effects of boundary layer changes on the flow over high angle boattail nozzles. The tests were run on an isolated axisymmetric sting mounted model. Various boattail geometries were investigated at high subsonic speeds over a range of boundary layer thicknesses. In general, boundary layer effects were small at speeds up to Mach 0.8. However, at higher speeds significant regions of separated flow were present on the boattail. When separation was present large reductions in boattail drag resulted with increasing boundary layer thickness. The analysis predicts both of these trends.
A combined experimental and analytical program was conducted to investigate the effects of boundary layer changes on the flow over high angle boattail nozzles. The tests were run on an isolated axisymmetric sting mounted model. Various boattail geometries were investigated at high subsonic speeds over a range of boundary layer thicknesses. In general, boundary layer effects were small at speeds up to Mach 0.8. However, at higher speeds significant regions of separated flow were present on the boattail. When separation was present large reductions in boattail drag resulted with increasing boundary layer thickness. The analysis predicts both of these trends.
A viscid-inviscid interaction procedure for the calculation of subsonic and transonic flow over a boattail was developed. This method couples a finite-difference inviscid analysis with an integral boundary-layer technique. Results indicate that the effect of the boundary layer is as important as an accurate inviscid method for this type of flow. Theoretical results from the solution of the full transonic-potential equation, including boundary layer effects, agree well with the experimental pressure distribution for a boattail. Use of the small disturbance transonic potential equation yielded results that did not agree well with the experimental results even when boundary-layer effects were included in the calculations.
The problem of transonic flow past boattails was studied with the aid of numerical relaxative schemes. Preliminary calculations were restricted to a particular model configuration which had been tested in an experimental program. It was found that the full potential equation must be considered in the study. The final results agreed very well with the experimental data. The investigation illustrates the strong interaction character of the transonic flow past a boattailed afterbody.
Incompressible potential flow theory corrected for compressibility effects, using the Lieblein-Stockman compressibility correction, was used to predict surface and flow field static pressures for a subsonic inlet at cruise conditions. The calculated internal and external surface static pressures were in good agreement with data at most conditions. The analysis was used to determine the capture stream-tube location and static-pressure distribution. Additive drag coefficients obtained from these results were consistently higher than those obtained using one-dimensional compressible flow theory. Increasing the distance between the inlet and boattail increased the cowl drag force. The effect of the boundary layer on internal and external surface static-pressure distributions was small at the design cruise condition. The analytical results may be used as an aid to data reduction and for predicting inlet mass flow, stagnation point location, and inlet additive drag.
A method of calculating the pressure distributions on boattails is proposed. This method accounts for viscous effects including the presence of a separated region for base flows by combining an inviscid analysis with a boundary layer analysis in an iterative calculation. Details of the reversed flow region are not considered. Some preliminary results have been obtained for boattails at subsonic free stream Mach number with turbulent boundary layers separating at the boattail base. In some cases convergence could not be obtained using the present computer program. It is possible, in principle, to extend this method to the calculation of boattail flows with pressure gradient induced separation on the boattail.
Several methods for predicting the separation point for a compressible turbulent boundary layer were applied to the flow over a bump on a wind-tunnel wall. Measured pressure distributions were used as input. Two integral boundary-layer methods, three finite-difference boundary-layer methods, and three simple methods were applied at five free-stream Mach numbers ranging from 0.354 to 0.7325. Each of the boundary-layer methods failed to explicitly predict separation. However, by relaxing the theoretical separation criteria, several boundary-layer methods were made to yield reasonable separation predictions, but none of the methods accurately predicted the important boundary-layer parameters at separation. Only one of the simple methods consistently predicted separation with reasonable accuracy in a manner consistent with the theory. The other methods either indicated several possible separation locations or only sometimes predicted separation.